Nature Is A Good Guide Through Life, And The Love Of Simple
Pleasures Next, If Not Superior, To Virtue; And We Had On Board An
Irishman Who Based His Claim To The Widest And Most Affectionate
Popularity Precisely Upon These Two Qualities, That He Was Natural
And Happy.
He boasted a fresh colour, a tight little figure,
unquenchable gaiety, and indefatigable goodwill.
His clothes
puzzled the diagnostic mind, until you heard he had been once a
private coachman, when they became eloquent and seemed a part of
his biography. His face contained the rest, and, I fear, a
prophecy of the future; the hawk's nose above accorded so ill with
the pink baby's mouth below. His spirit and his pride belonged,
you might say, to the nose; while it was the general shiftlessness
expressed by the other that had thrown him from situation to
situation, and at length on board the emigrant ship. Barney ate,
so to speak, nothing from the galley; his own tea, butter, and eggs
supported him throughout the voyage; and about mealtime you might
often find him up to the elbows in amateur cookery. His was the
first voice heard singing among all the passengers; he was the
first who fell to dancing. From Loch Foyle to Sandy Hook, there
was not a piece of fun undertaken but there was Barney in the
midst.
You ought to have seen him when he stood up to sing at our
concerts - his tight little figure stepping to and fro, and his feet
shuffling to the air, his eyes seeking and bestowing encouragement-
-and to have enjoyed the bow, so nicely calculated between jest and
earnest, between grace and clumsiness, with which he brought each
song to a conclusion.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 43 of 262
Words from 11217 to 11506
of 70588
