CHAPTER VIII

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Random Remarks on Things Corkonian

THEY told me that Cork was a very dirty city. They even said it was filthy, and they said it in such a way as to reflect on Irishmen in general and Corkonians in particular.

Yes, they said that Cork was a dirty city, and so I found it—almost as dirty as New York. This may sound like a strong statement, but I mean it.

When I arrived in Cork I saw a hill and made for it at once, because after railway there is nothing that so takes the kinks out of a fellow's legs as a walk up a stiff hill. And anyhow I was on a walking tour.

I arrived at the top about sunset. On reading this sentence over I find that it sounds as if the hill was an all-day journey, but it was only a matter of a few squares, and when I started the sun had long since made up its mind to set.

In Ireland the sun takes on Irish ways, and is just a little dilatory. It always means to set, and it always does set in time to avoid being out in the dark, but it's "an unconscionably long time a dying."

At the summit of the hill I saw a church steeple that appealed to my esthetic sense, and I asked a little boy what church it was.

"Shandon churrch, sirr," said he with the rapid and undulating utterance of the Corkonian.

"Where the bells are?" said I.

"Yes," said he, smiling. "And over beyont is the Lee."

"The pleasant waters of the river Lee," I quoted at him, and he smiled again. Probably every traveler who goes to Cork quotes the lovely old bit of doggerel, but the Corkonian smiles and smiles.

The river Lee runs through the center of Cork, and at evening it is a favorite place for fishing, also for learning to swim on dry land.

The fishermen seem to fish for the love of casting, and the little boys swim on the pavement—two pursuits as useless as they are pleasant. Over the bridge the fishermen leaned, and cast their lines in anything but pleasant places—for the river is malodorous—and the little boys stood on benches and dived to the pavement, where they spat and then went through the motions of swimming.

There were dozens of the little boys, and most of them seemed to be brothers. Some of them were quite expert in diving backward, and all of them were dirty, but they seemed to be happy. I could not help thinking how soon the Celtic mind begins to use symbols, for it was easy to see that when the boys spat it signified a watering place to them. I dare say they were breaking a city ordinance in spitting, and if they knew that they were that much happier—stolen sweets are the sweetest.

During the time I watched the setting sun—which was still at it and, by the way, performed some lovely variations on a simple color scheme in the sky—not even an eel was caught, but the fishermen cast under the bridge, let their bait float down the (un) pleasant waters, and drew in their lines again and again—mute examples of a patience that one does not associate with Ireland.

At last I left them and started out to find Shandon church, which seemed but a few squares away.

My pathway led through the slums, and up a hill so steep that I hope horses only use it as a means of descent. I passed one fireside where the folks looked cosy and happy and warm. It was a summer evening, but chilly, and the place into which I looked was a shop for the sale of coal. Shoemakers' children are generally barefooted, but these people were burning their own coal, and the mother and the dirty children sprawled around the store or home, in a shadow-casting way, that would have delighted Mynheer Rembrandt if he had passed by.

I was struck with the population of Cork. It was most of it on the sidewalk, and nearly all of it was under sixteen. Pretty faces, too, among them, and happy looking. I think that sympathy would have been wasted on them. They had so much more room than they would have had in New York, and they were not any dirtier—than New Yorkers of the same class.

After I had reached the top of the hill I turned and looked for Shandon church and it was gone. I asked a boy what had become of it, and he told me that in following my winding way through the convolutions known as streets I had gotten as far from the church as I could in the time. He told me pleasantly just how to go to get to the church, and it involved going to the foot of the hill and beginning again.

I asked a number of times after that, and always got courteous but rapid answers. The Irish are great talkers, but the Corkonian could handicap himself with a morning's silence, and beat his brothers from other counties before evening.

At last I came on the church, passing, just before I reached it, the Greencoat Hospital National School, with its quaint and curious (to quote three of Poe's words) statues of a green-coated boy and girl.

I asked a man when the bells began to ring (for I had been told that they only rang at night).

"'Every quar-rter of an hour, sirr, they'll be ringing in a couple of minutes, sirr."

Green Coat Hospital, Cork

One likes to indulge in a bit of sentiment sometimes, and I stood and waited to hear the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on the pleasant waters of the river Lee. I had left the Lee to the fishermen and the make-believe swimmers, but the bells would sound sweetly here under the tower that held them.

A minute passed, and then another, and then I heard music—music that called forth old memories of days long since dead. How it pealed out its delight on the (icy) air of night. And how well I knew the tune:

"Down where the Wurzburger flows."

No, it was not the chimes, but a nurse in the hospital at a piano. Before she had finished, Shandon bells began, but they played what did not blend with what she sang, and I went on my way thinking on the potency of music.

I passed on down where the river Lee flowed, and the fishermen were still fishing, but the little boys had tired of swimming.

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Two signs met me at nearly every corner. One read, "James J. Murphy & Co.," and the other "Beamish & Crawford," or "Crawford & Beamish," I forget which. Both marked the places of publicans (and sinners, I doubt not), and both were brewers' names. The publican's own name never appeared, but these names were omnipresent.

Again I thought of Shandon bells, and the romantic song, "Down Where the Wurzburger Flows," and leaving the Lee still flowing I sought my hotel.

I would like to make a revolutionary statement, that is more often thought than uttered, but before I make it, I would like to say that there are two classes of travelers: those who think there is nothing in Europe that compares with similar things in America, and those who think there is nothing in America that can hold a candle to similar things in Europe.

I hope I belong to neither class. If I mistake not, I am a Pharisee, and thank my stars that I am not as other men are. Most of us are Pharisees, but few will admit it.

I began being a Pharisee when I was a small child, and that is the time that most people begin.

I kept it up. In this, I am—like the multitude.

Having thus stated my position, let me go on to say, that I am perfectly willing to admit that this or that bit of scenery in France, or Switzerland, or England, or Ireland, lays over anything of the sort I ever saw in America, if I think it does, and I am equally willing to say, that America has almost unknown bits that are far better than admired and poet-ridden places in Europe.

Twin Lakes in Connecticut is one of them, and Killarney is a poet-ridden place.

Why, even in Ireland there are places just as lovely as Killarney, but they have not been written up, and so no one goes to visit them.

I felt that one of the worst things about Killarney was the American sightseer, and I came away soon.

Cook's tourists have never heard of Twin Lakes, thank fortune, and it will be some time before they (the lakes) are spoiled.

The Lakes of Killarney are so beautiful that they are worthy of the pen of a poet, but the pen of a poet does not make any lake more beautiful, and I am quarreling because so many people refuse to believe the evidence of their own senses, and take their natural beauties at the say so of another.

There is a tower going up in New York at present, a tower that with the exception of the Eiffel Tower is the tallest on earth.

Many persons look at it, reflect that it is a skyscraper, and then dismiss it as therefore hideous. But it is really very beautiful, and seen from certain vantage points, it is architecturally one of the glories of New York.

A bit of Killarney

If it ever gains a reputation for beauty, you will find persons raving over it, who to-day class it among the "hideous skyscrapers."

A hundred years ago there were some skyscrapers in Switzerland, and they were thought to be hideous. After awhile a man with a poet's eyes and a courageous tongue visited them, and he said "The Alps are beautiful."

When their reputation for beauty was established, travelers left the region round about the Rockies to go and rave over the beauties of Switzerland.

That's all.


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