rish; one was an
inexhaustible mine of legends, which she related to me--she surpassed
Croker; the other, less versed, still knew a great deal, and told me how
her own father, Jackey Mooney, had seen the fairies with his own eyes.
Both of these sincerely and seriously regarded me as "gifted" or elfin-
favoured, and the latter said in proof thereof, "Only listen to his
voice; sure whin he spakes he'd while a burred aff a tree." For my
uncanny ways made a deep impression on them, as also on the darkies.

Once I had a wonderful dream. I thought that I was in Dr. Furness's
chapel, but that, instead of the gentle reverend clergyman, the devil
himself was in the pulpit preaching. Feeling myself inspired, I went up
into the pulpit, threw the Evil One out, and preached myself in his
place. Now our nurse had a dream-book, and made some pretence to mystic
fairy knowledge learned in Kilkenny, and she interpreted this dream as
signifying that I would greatly rise in this world, and do strange
things. But she was greatly struck with such a vision in such an infant.

Now, I was a great reader of Scripture; in fact, I learned a great deal
too much of it, believing now that for babes and sucklings about
one-third of it had better be expurgated. The Apocrypha was a favourite
work, but above all I loved the Revelations, a work which, I may say by
the way, is still a treasure to be investigated as regards the marvellous
mixture of Neo-Platonic, later Egyptian (or Gnostic), and even Indian
Buddhistic ideas therein. Well, I had learned from it a word which St.
John applies (to my mind very vulgarly and much too frequently) to the
Scarlet Lady of Babylon or Rome. What this word meant I did not know,
but this I understood, that it was "sass" of some kind, as negroes term
it, and so one day I applied it experimentally to my nurse. Though the
word was not correctly pronounced, for I had never heard it from anybody,
its success was immediate, but not agreeable. The passionate Irish woman
flew into a great rage and declared that she would "lave the house." My
mother, called in, investigated the circumstances, and found that I
really had no idea whatever of the meaning of what I had said. Peace was
restored, but Annie declared that only the divil or the fairies could
have inspired such an infant to use such language.

I was very fond of asking my nurse to sing in old Irish or to teach me
Irish words. This she did, but agreed with her