ericans would not be more agreeable if we spent a month in
Ireland every year, and perhaps Ireland would profit from a month in
America.

At the Brodigans' (Mr. Brodigan is a large farmer, and our nearest
neighbour) all the clocks are from ten to twenty minutes fast or slow;
and what a peaceful place it is! The family doesn't care when it has its
dinner, and, mirabile dictu, the cook doesn't care either!

"If you have no exact time to depend upon, how do you catch trains?" I
asked Mr. Brodigan.

"Sure that's not an everyday matter, and why be foostherin' over it? But
we do, four times out o' five, ma'am!"

"How do you like it that fifth time when you miss it?"

"Sure it's no more throuble to you to miss it the wan time than to hurry
five times! A clock is an overrated piece of furniture, to my mind, Mrs.
Beresford, ma'am. A man can ate whin he's hungry, go to bed whin he's
sleepy, and get up whin he's slept long enough; for faith and it's thim
clocks he has inside of himself that don't need anny winding!"

"What if you had a business appointment with a man in the town, and
missed the train?" I persevered.

"Trains is like misfortunes; they never come singly, ma'am. Wherever
there's a station the trains do be dhroppin' in now and again, and
what's the differ which of thim you take?"

"The man who is waiting for you at the other end of the line may not
agree with you," I suggested.

"Sure, a man can always amuse himself in a town, ma'am. If it's your
own business you're coming on, he knows you'll find him; and if it's
his business, then begorra let him find you!" Which quite reminded me
of what the Irish elf says to the English elf in Moira O'Neill's fairy
story: "A waste of time? Why, you've come to a country where there's no
such thing as a waste of time. We have no value for time here. There is
lashings of it, more than anybody knows what to do with."

I suppose there is somewhere a golden mean between this complete
oblivion of time and our feverish American hurry. There is a 'tedious
haste' in all people who make wheels and pistons and engines, and live
within sound of their everlasting buzz and whir and revolution; and
there is ever a disposition to pause, rest, and consider on the part of
that man whose daily tasks are done in serene collaboration with dew and
rain and sun. One cannot hurry Mother Nature very much, after all, and
one who has much to do with her falls into a peaceful habit of mind. The
mo