Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z
History
Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z
Speeches, addresses, etc.
And then you approach Ireland. You have had enough of the ocean wave,
and you think you will stop there. I have no doubt everybody present,
after hearing from the lips of the distinguished chaplain on my right as
to the character of the men who come from that country, will hereafter
always want to stop there. And when you land at Queenstown you are taken
for an American suspect. They think you are going to join the Fenian
army. They look at you as if you intended to go forth from that ship as
the dove went forth from the ark, in search of some green thing. You
assure them that the only manner in which you can be compared with that
dove is in the general peacefulness of your intentions. Then you go
wandering around by the shores of the Lakes of Killarney and the Gap of
Dunloe, that spot where the Irishman worked all day for the agent of an
absentee landlord on the promise of getting a glass of grog. At night
the agent brought out the grog to him, and the Irishman tasted it, and
he said to the agent, "Which did you put in first, the whiskey or the
water?" "Oh," said he, "the whiskey." "Ah, ha! Well, maybe I'll come to
it by and by." [Laughter.] You look around upon the army, the
constabulary, the police, and you begin to think that Ireland is a good
deal like our own city of Troy, where there are two police forces on
duty--that it is governed a great deal. You can't help thinking of the
philosophical remark made by that learned Chinese statesman, Chin Lan
Pin, when he was here at the time Dennis Kearney was having an
unpleasantness with the Orientals. A man said to him, "Your people will
have to get out of here; the Irish carry too much religion around to
associate with Pagans." "Yes," said Chin Lan Pin, "we have determined to
go. Our own country is too overcrowded now, we can't go there, and I
think we'll go to Ireland." Said the man, "To Ireland? You will be
jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire." Said Chin Lan Pin, "I have
travelled in your country and all around a good deal, and I have come to
the conclusion that nowadays Ireland is about the only country that is
not governed by the Irish." [Applause and laughter.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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