Page:The Wild Goose.djvu/33

8.

November the 28, 1867.

Gentlemen,

I have made bould to take up my pen and write yez a letther, tho’ I’m in dhread yez may be too grand to prent annything from a simple boy like meself. The boys takes grate pride out of yez intirely. Yez is able to rite pothry and ourty stories wid anny one—I don’t care who’s his father—this side o’ the Galtees. We—that is, the boys and meself—feel quite thankful to yez for the intherest yez takes in us, in pointin’ out how we should conduct ourselves, that we might hould up our heads as grand as anny one else in the world, and niver reflect disgrace on the ould country. ’Tis very thrue, gintlemen, that I haven’t much o’ the lerning, but what with lookin’ in te spellin’ book, and gettin’ a boy o’ the Leary’s, who knows a power o’ lernin’;—his uncle havin’ ped 21 shillins a quarther for his schoolin’, for he was intinded for a priest,—to help me out wid the big words. I don’t doubt but yez’ll say I’ve rote a mity clever letther. Now, gintelmen, I spelled out, afther a grate dale o’ throuble, the fine letther yez prenthed last week from our "valuable correspondent" as yez call him; and, gintlemen, yez not only say yez would like to hear from him agen, but yez would like to have your readers anser the abs thruse (that’s a ante word—it manes anny thing mity hard to find out) questions he axes. Now, thin, gintlemen, whin a man dars me to tread on the tale of his coat, I niver could find it in me to resist the temptation: so, if i can anser the letther rote by Misther "Deltha"—I suppose he must be a Gracian—I shall only be doin’ what the sperrits move me to do, as the Dewakers say, though, gintlemen, yoy;ll admit its very little moving power the sperrits can have that we get—God be good to us! First, then, he wants to know if yez heard about the wather famine: lave the weather out, and I’ll go bail anny Irishman could tell a grate dale about the famine. Who can ever forget it but the whose hart has grown dead and could to the janial influences of home, and whose natheral feelins have been visphiated and corrupted by the false tachins and golden bribes of the stranger, whose hart is not so false as black as his own. As for distant parts, where man and baste perish of the drowt, mat the grate God grant that we can niver be able to tell anny thing about that! Secondly, why is Austhralia so dhry, and the ould land so humid?—which, I’m told, manes moist or damp. Austrhralia is dhry because of the grate hate of the sun, and the hot winds that blow there, which scarcely laves anny wather in the very few rivers—comparatively speakin’—that flow there. It is aisy to see that, even without the assistance of what I call natheral causes, the tears shed by the unhappy children of mother Erin for he misfothins would keep the ould country humid. Thirdly, whin your flock flies homewards—which yez will, soon and sudden, plase God—the flapping of your wings will cause all the pearly dhrops that fall from the lovely blue and black eyed craythers of colleens, and all who grieved afther your sad fate, to evaporate; and to that extent would evaporation be increased, Fourth, i think it is a sad thing to see te brown canvas dipped in the say, and again on a noble vessel, bearin’ on board exiles from Erin (condemned as common felons for loving their native land) to a far-off counthry, where even the very sky is sthrange, and from whince they may niver return to visit the home of their childhood; but I also think that God is just and merciful, and hope whispers that He may be plased to place us once more on board some gallant bark, with brown or white canvas gayly spread to the breeze, bound homeward. Fifth,—whisper gintlemen, yez ought to spake up bould, and tell him yez are able to do any mortial thing undher the sun. Sixthly and lastly (as grate scholars say), if I was able to collect the joyious clouds, tipt with rose and silver and gold and blue, and all sorts of buteful shades and colors,—where would take them?—where would ? Why not to that little green isle far over the say, where the hart is warmer, the sun is brighter, and the sky dearer than anny other place in the wide, wide world. The visions of my fancy—my all—my life, i would offer up at the alther of the land of my birth,—the queen of my affections, my soul’s love. And het tells is gintlemen, be the powers! that echo sez, "Garden bowers,—the fruits are ours." Echo may know a grate dale, and praps they’re his and his chum’s; but they’re, as we now to our grief. Larned gintlemen like yez can refer him to what was sed by the ould ancient Latin poet called Vergil, who lived ever so long ago.

I now close, gintlemen, and wish yez and all yez staff and your readers success and prosperity wherever yez may go, and a speedy return on wings of love agen to the dear ould land, which yez may niver lave agen till God calls yez to a happier and better world; and asin’ yez to join me in prayin’ God be wid thim at home. I remain, gintlemin, Your most obedient servant, Paddy from Cork.

Printed and published at the Office, No. 6 Mess, Intermediate Cabin, for the Editors, Messrs John Flood and J.B. O’Reilly.