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Show IRISH OPTIMISM. The Kelt Ses Things Through Rose Colored Glasses. The Irishman seips everything through rose colored glasses, says a writer In the Guidon. He is supported, too. by a simple, sturdy faith, a spirit of resignation resigna-tion and unwordliness worthy of the saints of old. The dread blight had fallen on the fields in most of the district wher-? we were visiting in Ireland, and thvi potato pota-to vines hung limp and brown. No -word of complaint was spoken, and when the likelihood of famine was mentioned men-tioned the answer came: "Danger, ma'am? Yes, there is indeed, in-deed, but God is good. He'll find a way." So. too. .about the hay. The summer had been terribly wet. and for clays the new-mown hay had lain on the ground. It was an anxious time. "What will you do?" I said to Mike, "if this weather keeps up? Your hay will surely be ruined." "Oh. please God. it won't keep up." he answered. "He'll send us a bright day soon, just to sec how well we'll use it." - "What a glorious night, Mikey!" I said to the boy, as he and I and the donkey drove home under the August moon. "A fine night, indeed, ma'am. Thanks be to God for giving it to us!" They showed us, on the road to f.v.vn. a gentleman's place, where, in a. stretch of what not long since had evidently evi-dently been thickly wooded land, stood stump after stump of giant trees. Four or five years ago. when the wintor was exceptionally long and cold, the peasants peas-ants suffered from scarcity of jieat. They begged this' landed proprietor to sell them wood, offering not only to pay his price, but to fell the trees and carry them off. He refused. Again and again they begged, for the suffering grew intense, but iie would not let his land be marred. One uiarht there came a wind so frightful that it seemed for a time as if the "big wind'' were blowing again. In the morning the highway along this proprietor's domain do-main was impassable. Huge trees, blown to the ground, lay across the i road for a distance of to miles, and! the forest beauty was a thing of the j past. Tiie town authorities ordered the obstruction cleared away, and the peasants peas-ants got for nothing more than they had been refused for pay. " 'Twas the hand of God was in that, ma'am," I was told. "for. with al! the wind, not a poor man's cot was harmed, nor another tree on the countryside, only those. God always looks after His poor." |
