Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/394

The Australians will differ from their progenitors by a more decisive penchant for enjoyment. Marcus Clarke attributes it to the Irish element; but is it not rather attributable to the sunshine? The Irish certainly resemble the continental rather than the insular races. Not merely the Latins, but the Teutons and Slavs, like to live their lives, whereas the English and Americans generally live for some future generation—a practice better for the nation certainly, but is it better for the individual? Seeing we have but one life to live, it may be doubted.

Alas for the poet whose imagination so often outruns his capacity and resources! Orion Home assured me that Leigh Hunt's charming description of artistic breakfasts in summer, which quicken the appetite like one of Walter Scott's banquets, was represented and practised by butter wrapped in paper, carried to the table by a slovenly maid-of-all-work, and similar penury and discomfort in the other constituents. Alas, poor genius! it cannot have both worldly comforts and its share in the empyrean. Home and the school which recognised W. J. Fox as leader came in just as the Lamb and Hazlitt connection was expiring. They were ad interim Radicals before the coming of John Bright, the "crowning mercy," or the swell Radicals Charles Duller, Molesworth, Lytton Bulwer, and the rest. Joe Hume was their contemporary, but not associate. He was a man of one stinted idea, and Roebuck had not the power of associating himself with anybody. Tom Duncombe and Bernal Osborne only masqueraded as Radicals, being merely men about town in want of a sensation.

Had a good deal of talk yesterday with Mackay; like most men he is pleasanter in a tête-à-tête than on his legs. I asked him why the Scotch so habitually hated the Irish who had never done them any harm? He said he believed they were disgusted with the superstition of the peasantry, and their servile submission to their priests. No wonder, I rejoined Burns wished for his countrymen the gift to see themselves as others see them. Buckle declares that the most superstitious race in Europe are the Scotch, and the most prostrate before their ministers. The Spaniard, he insists, do not approach them in either attribute. It was amusing to see Mackay's astonishment.

We have a French femme de chambre who is a curious study of national character. The gardener stepped into the kitchen the other day with his hat on. She inquired if Monsieur had a cold in his head? No! Then perhaps Monsieur will have the goodness to take off his hat. She is learning English rapidly, but when she masters a new phrase she is careful to repeat it to her mistress, in order to make sure she is not learning "kitchen English."

I have been reading the "Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough," the representative man of the upright modern sceptic, who was not betrayed by passion or perversity, but perplexed by honest difficulties unwillingly entertained. The prose is gentle, thoughtful, commonplace, and the early poetry ultra-Wordsworthian in its simplicity. What would Jeffrey or Lord Byron| have said to this—

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"Locked hand in hand with one another
A little maiden and her brother.
A little maiden and she wore
Around her waist a pinafore."

His principal poems arose immediately out of some personal experience as the "Boothie" out of a Highland excursion; the "Amour de Voyage" out of a visit to Rome; and "Dysychus" out of a visit to Venice. They are of the class one reads with certain enjoyment, and does not want to recur to.

The National Gallery gets on slowly. It is impossible to get an adequate grant for it. £1,000 buys only one good picture; but I have been medi-