, and the true proof is, no tourist will pretend to tell you it
occurs in summer.

* * * * *

Having now seen what the lower class of Irish endure, it may be well to
look into their natural character, and ascertain what is the cause of
that endurance--what are their virtues, and what their vices?

That "endurance under privation, greater than that of any country in
Europe," is the true characteristic of the peasantry, cannot be
questioned, particularly after being declared by the high authority of
the Devon Commission. That it is innate in their character, is evident.
They believe that "whatever is, is best"--not as fatalists; for under
the most severe suffering, you will hear them say, "Well, shure, it's a
marcy 'twasn't worse any how." "Well, I'm shure, I might be contint,
bekase it might be double as bad." And every sentence ends--"And God is
good." They have also a certain natural _spring_ (lessening daily)
which upholds them, and they _try_ to make the best of every thing as it
comes.

"Jack," said I, some years since, to a handy "hedge carpenter," in the
county of Wexford, "why did you not come last night to do the job I
wanted? It is done now, and you have lost it." "Whi-thin, that's my
misforthin any how--an be-dad 'twas a double misforthin too, for I wus
dooin nothin else thin devartin meeself." "_Diverting_ yourself," said
I, "and not minding your business?" "Bee-dad it's too thru; but I'll
tell your hanur how it happened. I wus workin fur the last three days
fur my lan'lady, which av coorse goes agin the rint; and whin I cum home
yisterday evenin, throth, barrin I tuck the bit from the woman and
childre, sorra a taste I could get--so sis I, Biddy jewel, I'm mighty
sick intirely, an I cant ate any thing. Well, she coxed me--but I
didn't. So afther sittin a while, I bethought me that there wus to be a
piper at the Crass-roads, an I was thin gettin morthul hungery; so sis I
t'meeself _I'll go dance the hunger off_--and so I did:--an that wus the
way I wus divartin meeself." Now, I have no doubt, that many an Irishman
has _danced_ the thought of hunger away as well as Jack. But the
following incident will prove that the innate feeling of the people is
to make the best of their miseries.

It was, I think, in the winter of 1840, a fortnight of most severe
weather set in at Dublin. I had suffered in London from "Murphy's
coldest day" in 1838, and thought it was in reality the cold