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Article CHAPTER IX. ← Page 5 of 10 →
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Chapter Ix.
who may be younger or more deficient than myself , can lessen me in your eyes , or derogate , in the sight of others , from the consideration of one who otherwise deports and conducts himself as a gentleman . " " Most certainly , not ; hut , on the contrary , raise it in the estimation of all discerning persons . " " Nor is it only in individuals who have risen from obscurity , but in the case of some also who have fallen from eminences , that personal exertions
have heen the sole instrument of support , for to omit others of the kind , it must be familiar to you as to every Irishman , how that the Duchess of Tyrconnell , the wife of Richard Talbot , Lord Deputy of this country , in James the Second's reign , having been driven by distress , after that monarch's abdication , to keep one of the stands in Exeter Change , then a fashionable place of resort , sold millinery there by day , which she laboured with her own hands at night , in a miserable little apartment , ivhich served her for all the purposes of kitchen , parlour , drawing-room , and bedchamber . "
" Time , sir , " resumed Thurlogh , " is ever variable , as well in the aspects which it wears , as in the effects which it produces . Yet , ready as I am to accord that the present ivhich we enjoy is more favourable to civilization than that whence we have just emerged : and willing as I am to hope that it is pregnant with elements which no very distant day will fructify , I must notwithstanding withhold my assent from any proposition which would go to obscure the past , for the fashionable aggrandizement of the modern eras . " " Surely , my young friend , your years and narrow intercourse with the
world could not allow you such an acquaintance with the manners of the ancients as to affirm a contrary position . You are too young , too , I should have thought , to find pleasure in the memorials of a hy gone age ; or to appreciate the feelings that link us by nature to the invisible worthies of a former existence . " " For myself , sir , " replied our hero , "I can affirm that I view them not in that regard , as they carry my mind hack to a period when freedom was more general and tyranny more circumscribed .- when the arts flourished , and
ignorance repined ; when the whole world , in short , was one blaze of literature and enlightment : and Ireland—our once favoured , though now wretched Ireland—the proud scene of Apollo ' s praise , the very centre and focus of the general illumination . "
CHAPTER XI . AVhat must have been O'Sullivan ' s raptures , when , in the mysterious young personage with whom he now conversed , and whom he secretly contemplated with anticipation of eclat , he saw his natural aspirations so identically reflected as to leave him in douht as to whether they had oriinated from the speaker or been borrowed bhearsay from himself .
g y Bursting at last from his abstraction , he says— " You and I , Thurlogh , are perfectly agreed upon this subject , though , probably , we have arrived at the conclusion by two different ways . But you , Thurlogh , have had facilities for tbe investigation , such as few others have been blessed with . Presiding over your education you have had a parent whose profound insight into these matters was equalled only by his readiness to communicate and impart it .
" It so happened , however , sir , that my father , though conversant with much antiquarian lore , instead of encouraging in me a taste for the study of such pursuits , strove all that he could to repress and subdue it . 1 remember well the hour when , as I pressed upon him my importunities for something like an insight into those Round Tir . vers to which , I suppose , you have a
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Chapter Ix.
who may be younger or more deficient than myself , can lessen me in your eyes , or derogate , in the sight of others , from the consideration of one who otherwise deports and conducts himself as a gentleman . " " Most certainly , not ; hut , on the contrary , raise it in the estimation of all discerning persons . " " Nor is it only in individuals who have risen from obscurity , but in the case of some also who have fallen from eminences , that personal exertions
have heen the sole instrument of support , for to omit others of the kind , it must be familiar to you as to every Irishman , how that the Duchess of Tyrconnell , the wife of Richard Talbot , Lord Deputy of this country , in James the Second's reign , having been driven by distress , after that monarch's abdication , to keep one of the stands in Exeter Change , then a fashionable place of resort , sold millinery there by day , which she laboured with her own hands at night , in a miserable little apartment , ivhich served her for all the purposes of kitchen , parlour , drawing-room , and bedchamber . "
" Time , sir , " resumed Thurlogh , " is ever variable , as well in the aspects which it wears , as in the effects which it produces . Yet , ready as I am to accord that the present ivhich we enjoy is more favourable to civilization than that whence we have just emerged : and willing as I am to hope that it is pregnant with elements which no very distant day will fructify , I must notwithstanding withhold my assent from any proposition which would go to obscure the past , for the fashionable aggrandizement of the modern eras . " " Surely , my young friend , your years and narrow intercourse with the
world could not allow you such an acquaintance with the manners of the ancients as to affirm a contrary position . You are too young , too , I should have thought , to find pleasure in the memorials of a hy gone age ; or to appreciate the feelings that link us by nature to the invisible worthies of a former existence . " " For myself , sir , " replied our hero , "I can affirm that I view them not in that regard , as they carry my mind hack to a period when freedom was more general and tyranny more circumscribed .- when the arts flourished , and
ignorance repined ; when the whole world , in short , was one blaze of literature and enlightment : and Ireland—our once favoured , though now wretched Ireland—the proud scene of Apollo ' s praise , the very centre and focus of the general illumination . "
CHAPTER XI . AVhat must have been O'Sullivan ' s raptures , when , in the mysterious young personage with whom he now conversed , and whom he secretly contemplated with anticipation of eclat , he saw his natural aspirations so identically reflected as to leave him in douht as to whether they had oriinated from the speaker or been borrowed bhearsay from himself .
g y Bursting at last from his abstraction , he says— " You and I , Thurlogh , are perfectly agreed upon this subject , though , probably , we have arrived at the conclusion by two different ways . But you , Thurlogh , have had facilities for tbe investigation , such as few others have been blessed with . Presiding over your education you have had a parent whose profound insight into these matters was equalled only by his readiness to communicate and impart it .
" It so happened , however , sir , that my father , though conversant with much antiquarian lore , instead of encouraging in me a taste for the study of such pursuits , strove all that he could to repress and subdue it . 1 remember well the hour when , as I pressed upon him my importunities for something like an insight into those Round Tir . vers to which , I suppose , you have a