there is beneath all this resemblance the difference that must exist
between a race immemorially civilized and one which has lately emerged
from barbarism "after six centuries of oppression." You are likely to find
a polite pagan under the mask of the modern Italian you feel pretty sure
that any of his race would with a little washing and skillful
manipulation, _restore_, like a neglected painting, into something
genuinely graceful and pleasing; but if one of these Yankeefied Celts were
scraped, it is but too possible that you might find a kern, a Whiteboy, or
a Pikeman. The chance of discovering a scholar or a saint of the period
when Ireland was the centre of learning, and the favorite seat of the
Church, is scarcely one in three.

Among the houses fronting on the main street of Dublin, every other one--I
speak in all moderation--is a grocery, if I may judge by a tin case of
corn-balls, a jar of candy, and a card of shirt-buttons, with an under
layer of primers and ballads, in the windows. You descend from the street
by several steps into these haunts, which are contrived to secure the
greatest possible dampness and darkness; and if you have made an errand
inside, you doubtless find a lady before the counter in the act of putting
down a guilty-looking tumbler with one hand, while she neatly wipes her
mouth on the back of the other. She has that effect, observable in all
tippling women of low degree, of having no upper garment on but a shawl,
which hangs about her in statuesque folds and lines. She slinks out
directly, but the lady behind the counter gives you good evening with

"The affectation of a bright-eyed ease,"

intended to deceive if you chance to be a State constable in disguise, and
to propitiate if you are a veritable customer: "Who was that woman,
lamenting so, over in the grave-yard?" "O, I don't know, sir," answered