to feel oneself of infinite value to
How could I ever think life easy enough to be ventured on alone! It is so beautiful to feel oneself of infinite value to one other human creature; to hear beside one’s own step the tread of a chosen companion on the same road. And if the way be dusty or the hills difficult to climb, each can say to the other, ‘I love you, dear; lean on me and walk in confidence. I can always be counted on, whatever happens.’
Chapter 19 ‘In Ould Donegal’
‘Here’s a health to you, Father O’Flynn!
Slainte, and slainte, and slainte agin;
Pow’rfulest preacher and tenderest teacher,
And kindliest creature in ould Donegal.’
Alfred Perceval Graves.
Coomnageeha Hotel,
In Ould Donegal.
It is a far cry from the kingdom of Kerry to ‘ould Donegal,’ where we have been travelling for a week, chiefly in the hope of meeting Father O’Flynn. We miss our careless, genial, ragged, southern Paddy just a bit; for he was a picturesque, likable figure, on the whole, and easier to know than this Ulster Irishman, the product of a mixed descent.
We did not stop long in Belfast; for if there is anything we detest, when on our journeys, it is to mix too much with people of industry, thrift, and business sagacity. Sturdy, prosperous, calculating, well-to-do Protestants are well enough in their way, and undoubtedly they make a very good backbone for Ireland; but we crave something more romantic than the citizen virtues, or we should have remained in our own country, where they are tolerably common, although we have not as yet anything approaching over-production.
Belfast, it seems, is, and has always been, a centre of Presbyterianism. The members of the Presbytery protested against the execution of Charles I., and received an irate reply from Milton, who said that ‘the blockish presbyters of Clandeboy’ were ‘egregious liars and impostors,’ who meant to stir up rebellion ‘from their unchristian synagogue at Belfast in a barbarous nook of Ireland.’
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