The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale

I am writing to you from the back-room of a noisy hotel in the centre of a great and bustling city: my only prospect the gloomy walls of the surrounding houses. What a contrast!...

For my part, I should indeed wish the hours annihilated till I again behold Glorvina; but for the space which divides us, it was requisite I should be fifty miles from her, to b...

Ay, ‘tis even so--point your glasses--and rub your eyes, ‘tis all one; here I am, and here I am likely to remain for some time, but whether a prisoner of war, taken up on a susp...

Here is a _bonne bouche_ for your antiquarian taste, and _Ossianic_ palate! Almost every evening after vesper, we all assemble in a spacious hall, * which had been shut up for n...

In the various modes of penance invented by the various _penance mongers_ of pious austerity, did you ever hear the travelling in an _Irish postchaise_ enumerated as a punishmen...

Plato compares the soul to a small republic, of which the reasoning and judging powers are stationed in the head as in a citadel, and of which the senses are the guards or serva...

The priest is gone on his embassy. The rain which batters against the casement of my little hotel prevents me enjoying a ramble. I have nothing to read, and I must write or yawn...

I had just finished my last by the beams of a gloriously setting sun, when I was startled by a pebble being thrown in at my window. I looked out, and perceived Father John in th...

All the life-giving spirit of spring, mellowed by the genial glow of summer, shed its choicest treasures on the smiling hours which yesterday ushered in the most delightful of t...

I can support this wretched state of non-existence, this _articula mortis_, no longer. I cannot read--I cannot think--nothing touches, nothing interests me; neither is it permit...

The invitation I received from the hospitable Lord of these ruins, was so unequivocal, so cordial, that it would have been folly, not delicacy to think of turning out of his hou...

This is the sixth day of my convalescence, and the first of my descent from my western tower; for I find it is literally in a tower, or turret, which terminates a wing of these...

It certainly requires less nicety of perception to distinguish differences in kind than differences in degree; but though my present, like my past situation, is solitudinous in...

Just as I had finished my last, the Prince sent for me to his room; I found him alone, and sitting up in his bed! he only complained of the effects of years and sickness, but it...

It is all over--the spell is dissolved, and the vision forever vanished: yet my mind is not what it was, ere this transient dream of bliss “wrapt it in Elysium.” Then I neither...

I have already given two lessons to my pupil, in an art in which, with all due deference to the judgment of her quondam tutor, she was never destined to excel.

I have already passed four days beneath this hospitable roof. On the third, a slight fever with which I had been threatened passed off, my head was disincumbered, and on the fou...

This creature is deep in the metaphysics of love. She is perpetually awakening ardour by restraint, and stealing enjoyment from privation. She still persists in bringing the pri...

I remember, when I was a boy, meeting somewhere with the quaintly written travels of _Moryson_ through Ireland, and being particularly struck with his assertion, that so late as...

The drawing which I made of the castle is finished--the Prince is charmed with it, and Glorvina insisted on copying it. This was as I expected--as I wished; and I took care to f...

I perceive my father emulates the policy of the British Legislature, and delegates English ministers to govern his Irish domains. Who do you think is his _fac totum_ here? The r...

The more I know of this singular girl, the more the happy _discordia consors_ of her character awakens my curiosity and surprise. I never beheld such a union of intelligence and...

So says Monsieur de Balsac, and so repeats my heart a thousand times a day. In short, I am devoured by _ennui_, by apathy, by discontent! What should I do here? Nothing. I have...

desk; and to-day appeared at it with the priest by her side. Her playful familiarity is vanished, and a chill reserve, uncongenial to the native ardour of her manner has succeed...

To day I was present at an interview granted by the Prince to two contending parties, who came to _ask law of him_, as they term it. This, I am told, the Irish peasantry are rea...

should be subject to that mutability of fate which governs the busiest haunts of man. Is it possible, that among these dear ruins, where all the “life of life” has been restored...

To put an end at once to his impertinent surmises, curiosity, and suspicion, which I evidently saw lurking in his keen eye, I made a display of my fractured arm, which I still w...

I forgot to mention to you in my last, that to my utter joy and surprise, our _premier_ here has been recalled. On the day of my return, he received a letter from his lord, desi...

It is certain, that you men of the world are nothing less than men of _pleasure_:--would you taste it in all its essence, come to Inismore. Ah! no, pollute not with your presenc...

I cannot promise you any more Irish history. I fear my _Hiberniana_ is closed, and a volume of more dangerous, more delightful tendency, draws towards its bewitching subject eve...