Book 2 — CHAPTER XLVI ENGLAND—(continued)

I love England too much and I have seen of her too little to be able to speak on the subject. I shall make use of the observations of a friend.

In the actual state of Ireland (1822) is realised, for the twentieth time in two centuries,[1] that curious state of society which is so fruitful of courageous resolutions, and so opposed to a monotonous existence, and in which people, who breakfast gaily together, may meet in two hours' time on the field of battle. Nothing makes a more energetic and direct appeal to that disposition of the spirit, which is most favourable to the tender passions—to naturalness. Nothing is further removed from the two great English vices—cant and bashfulness,—moral hypocrisy and haughty, painful timidity. (See the Travels of Mr. Eustace(32) in Italy.) If this traveller gives a poor picture of the country, in return he gives a very exact idea of his own character, and this character, as that of Mr. Beattie(32), the poet (see his Life written by an intimate friend), is unhappily but too common in England. For the priest, honest in spite of his cloth, refer to the letters of the Bishop of Landaff.[2](32).

One would have thought Ireland already unfortunate enough, bled as it has been for two centuries by the cowardly and cruel tyranny of England; but now there enters into the moral state of Ireland a terrible personage: the Priest....

For two centuries Ireland has been almost as badly governed as Sicily. A thorough comparison between these two islands, in a volume of five hundred pages, would offend many people and overwhelm many established theories with ridicule. What is evident is that the happiest of these two countries—both of them governed by fools, only for the profit of a minority—is Sicily. Its governors have at least left it its love of pleasure; they would willingly have robbed it of this as of the rest, but, thanks to its climate, Sicily knows little of that moral evil called Law and Government.[3]

It is old men and priests who make the laws and have them executed, and this seems quite in keeping with the comic jealousy, with which pleasure is hunted down in the British Isles. The people there might say to its governors as Diogenes said to Alexander: "Be content with your sinecures, but please don't step between me and my daylight."[4]

By means of laws, rules, counter-rules and punishments, the Government in Ireland has created the potato, and the population of Ireland exceeds by far that of Sicily. This is to say, they have produced several millions of degenerate and half-witted peasants, broken down by work and misery, dragging out a wretched life of some forty or fifty years among the marshes of old Erin—and, you may be sure, paying their taxes! A real miracle! With the pagan religion these poor wretches would at least have enjoyed some happiness—but not a bit of it, they must adore St. Patrick.

Everywhere in Ireland one sees none but peasants more miserable than savages. Only, instead of there being a hundred thousand, as there would be in a state of nature, there are eight millions,[5] who allow five hundred "absentees" to live in prosperity at London or Paris.

Society is infinitely more advanced in Scotland,[6] where, in very many respects, government is good (the rarity of crime, the diffusion of reading, the non-existence of bishops, etc.). There the tender passions can develop much more freely, and it is possible to leave these sombre thoughts and approach the humorous.

One cannot fail to notice a foundation of melancholy in Scottish women. This melancholy is particularly seductive at dances, where it gives a singular piquancy to the extreme ardour and energy with which they perform their national dances. Edinburgh has another advantage, that of being withdrawn from the vile empire of money. In this, as well as in the singular and savage beauty of its site, this city forms a complete contrast with London. Like Rome, fair Edinburgh seems rather the sojourn of the contemplative life. At London you have the ceaseless whirlwind and restless interests of active life, with all its advantages and inconveniences. Edinburgh seems to me to pay its tribute to the devil by a slight disposition to pedantry. Those days when Mary Stuart lived at old Holyrood, and Riccio was assassinated in her arms, were worth more to Love (and here all women will agree with me) than to-day, when one discusses at such length, and even in their presence, the preference to be accorded to the neptunian system over the vulcanian system of ... I prefer a discussion on the new uniform given by the king to the Guards, or on the peerage which Sir B. Bloomfield(35) failed to get—the topic of London in my day—to a learned discussion as to who has best explored the nature of rocks, de Werner or de....

I say nothing about the terrible Scottish Sunday, after which a Sunday in London looks like a beanfeast. That day, set aside for the honour of Heaven, is the best image of Hell that I have ever seen on earth. "Don't let's walk so fast," said a Scotchman returning from church to a Frenchman, his friend; "people might think we were going for a walk."[7]

Of the three countries, Ireland is the one in which there is the least hypocrisy. See the New Monthly Magazine thundering against Mozart and the Nozze di Figaro.[8]

In every country it is the aristocrats, who try to judge a literary magazine and literature; and for the last four years in England these have been hand in glove with the bishops. As I say, that of the three countries where, it seems to me, there is the least hypocrisy, is Ireland: on the contrary, you find there a reckless, a most fascinating vivacity. In Scotland there is the strict observance of Sunday, but on Monday they dance with a joy and an abandon unknown to London. There is plenty of love among the peasant class in Scotland. The omnipotence of imagination gallicised the country in the sixteenth century.

The terrible fault of English society, that which in a single day creates a greater amount of sadness than the national debt and its consequences, and even than the war to the death waged by the rich against the poor, is this sentence which I heard last autumn at Croydon, before the beautiful statue of the bishop: "In society no one wants to put himself forward, for fear of being deceived in his expectations."

Judge what laws, under the name of modesty, such men must impose on their wives and mistresses.