The Wild Irish Girl: A National TaleMorgan, Lady (Sydney)
General
The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale
Morgan, Lady (Sydney)
British -- Ireland -- Fiction; Celts -- Fiction; Ireland -- Fiction; Love stories; Princesses -- Fiction
In a word, he has behaved like an Angel. So well, that by Heavens! I can
scarcely bear to think of it. A spurious half-bred generosity--a little
tincture of illiberality on his side, would have been Balm of Gillead to
my wounded conscience; but with unqualified goodness he has paid all my
debts, supplied my purse beyond my wants, and only asks in return, that
I will retire for a few months to Ireland, and this I believe merely to
wean me from the presence of an object which he falsely believes still
hangs about my heart with no moderate influence.
And yet I wish his mercy had flowed in any other channel, even though
more confined and less liberal.
Had he banished me to the savage desolations of Siberia, my exile would
have had some character; had he even transported me to a South Sea
Island, or threw me into an Esquimaux hut, my new species of being would
have been touched with some interest; for in fact, the present relaxed
state of my intellectual system requires some strong transition of
place, circumstance, and manners, to wind it up to its native tone, to
rouse it to energy, or awaken it to exertion.
But sent to a country against which I have a decided prejudice--which
I suppose semi-barbarous, semi-civilized; has lost the strong and
hardy features of savage life, without acquiring those graces which
distinguish polished society--I shall neither participate in the
poignant pleasure of awakened curiosity and acquired information, nor
taste the least of those enjoyments which courted my acceptance in my
native land. Enjoyments did I say! And were they indeed enjoyments? How
readily the mind adopts the phraseology of habit, when the sentiment it
once clothed no longer exists. Would that my past pursuits were even in
_recollection_, the aspect of enjoyments. But even my memory has lost
its character of energy, and the past, like the present, appears
one unwearied scence of chill and vapid existence. No sweet point of
reflection seizes on the recollective powers. No actual joy woos my
heart’s participation, and no prospect of future felicity glows on
the distant vista of life, or awakens the quick throb of hope and
expectation; all is cold, sullen and dreary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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