Molly and Kitty, or Peasant Life in Ireland with Other Tales

Molly and Kitty, or Peasant Life in Ireland; with Other Tales

Although it is highly improbable that your happy and sheltered childhood and youth will ever be checkered by the struggles with fortune and the world painted in the following Scenes from Life, yet I am sure they cannot fail to interest you, increase your sympathy with all who suffer, and teach you to rejoice in the well-earned triumphs of uprightness, perseverance, patient study, benevolence, and the forgiveness of injuries. While reading them, will you not sometimes bestow a kind remembrance upon your friend and cousin, In one of the most desolate regions of Ireland, scarcely ever visited even by the most inquisitive traveller or the most eager sportsman, stood, nearly sixty years ago, a row of low and miserable hovels. They were formed of rough stones rudely piled together, and, at a little distance, looked more like the heaps of stones which in ancient times were thrown together to mark the spot upon which slept the dead, than houses intended to shelter human beings. Upon a closer examination, however, an observer might perceive, if the mould, moss, and mud did not succeed in concealing them from his searching glance, rude doors made of unplaned boards roughly nailed together, without either latch or bolt, with little holes irregularly bored through [4]them to admit the blessed light of heaven, which cheers the poor as well as the rich, within these dark and miserable walls. Notwithstanding this proof, he might still continue to gaze on in doubt, asking his sinking heart if it could be indeed possible that these unformed masses of stone were really intended for homes for beings endowed with quick susceptibilities, and the godlike powers of human reason. But as he inspected the tottering roof, thatched with rushes and covered with turf, he might observe heavy clouds of thick gray smoke curling and eddying from a hole in the top; then his last doubt must cease, and, breathing a deep sigh for the wretchedness surrounding him, he is forced to confess that nowhere throughout the whole extent of civilized Europe are such comfortless dwellings for men and women to be found. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 48379
Author: Burg, Maria
Release Date: Feb 28, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Eschenbach, Olga


Translator: Trauermantel