CHAPTER IX.
"Shall I see thee no more, thou lov'd land of sorrow?"
LAST LOOK OF IRELAND, AND THE SUMMING UP.
The time had come when the last long adieu must be taken of a people and country, where four years and four months had been passed, and it would be impossible to put the last penciling upon a picture like this, and not pause before laying it aside, and look again at its "Lights and Shades" as a whole. In doing so, the task is more painful than was the first labor, — First, because these "Lights and Shades" are imperfectly drawn; and second, because no future touch of the artist, however badly executed, can be put on; what is "written" is "written," and what is done is done forever. My feet shall never again make their untried way through some dark glen, or wade through a miry bog, or climb some slippery crag to reach the isolated mud cabin, and hear the kind "God save ye kindly, lady; come in, come in, ye must be wairy." Never again can the sweet words of eternal life be read to the listening way-side peasant, when he is breaking stones, or walking by the way; never will the potato be shared with the family group around the basket, or the bundle
