Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-25
THE CRITICS REVIEW.

M HEN tHdI SOOu snip, Tue CIy V 0eTLHt,
" making her first Atlantic journey touched
at Queenstown on the oath of May, 1875, two
men got off whose trunks were filled with large
blank notebooks. They went first to Blarney
Castle, and parted there to pursue different
courses. One visited Naples as the southern
most point and Munich as the easternmost.
The other visiting both Naples and Munich,
pushed on to the Golden Horn, and thence into
many other regions less trodden by summer
tourists.
Whether these two fellow-travelers made
themselves acquainted each with the other we
know not. OF any such acquaintance there is
no record. We associate the two by reason of
those trunks-full of large blank notebooks.
When they reached the harbor of New Y York
again after their extended tours, the blank
notebooks were all written up. For these two
slght-seers were of the sort whom Robert Burns
took pains to point out to his countrymen with
words of warning.
A chiefs amang We takin' notes
An faith he'll prent it.
The it," the reader will remember was any
possible hole which any neglectful Scotchman
might have in the elbow of his coat These two
Kind observers. however. were not bent upon
any such ungracioTs errand. They wanted to
see as many pleasant things as they could.
They did see great many pleasant things, and
great many interesting places, and best of all
tney nave taken great many other people
along with them in the pleasant and interesting
descriptions which they wrote.
ONE of the two passengers was DR.. Henry M.
Field, whose delightful series of books of
travel, beginning with From the Lakes of Kill
larney to the Golden Horn" everybody knows
about. The other was MIR. Francis e. Sessions,
OF Columbus, o., President of the Ohio Archao-
logical and Historical Society, whose handsome
volume, On the Wing Through Europe, lies on
Ia Grit tioJc +ol,l r.
Co., whose publication of Lote's Through Mo-
rocco" we were able to say some commendatory
things a few weeks ago. have their names on the
title page of Mr.. Sessions book. This is the
third edition, and is set out with quite a num-
Der of good pictures by E. w. Deming.
1t would be manifestly unfair to make a COM
Feds n hook Literary aHd Nay May
for DR.. Field IS professional literary
man. while Mr.. Sessions is a good, practical
and thoughtful American citizen, with sharp
eye for things worth seeing, and concise, SER
Vlceable way of writing them up, INDEPENDENTLY
without thought of book-makng is writing let
ters to his town paper. DR.. Fields books are
naturally better written. But that does not
make MIR. Sessions letters at all less interesting
or less worth reading. In fact. this third edi-
tion Is a fair testimony to the enjoyment which
this little book has already given.
1t is always of value, however, to notice how
people see and what they see. For the eye sees
what it brings of seeing. What we are we see.
The old story of how the bishop looked up in
the moon and saw in its markings the twin
up and saw two happy young people standing
up to be married. is true in some way every
day. Here are our two travellers at Blarney
Castle? What do they see?
A ND just here let us bring in still another
witness. Here is another visitor to
Blarney Castle, Killarney. This is Mr. Curtis
I1il6 nf Rncfa7 ;nI Dahl
tin. whose Ouer the Ocean Lee Sheppard,
]. R. Weldin & co., is just out in a new edi-
tion. A parson, an editor and a merchant
stand under the walls and climb the heights of
Barney Castle-wbat do they see?
Mr.. Guild. with whom we will begin, tells us
how he got to Blarney Castle. He has an edi-
tors eye for the things which people really
want to know. He went out, he says, in
jaunting-car. And jauntng-car he describes
cushions and room for four passengers the
four sitting back to back and facing the sides.
There is good road he tells us. smooth, hard
and well kept. with brown, ivy-clad stone walls
on either side, and the River Lee running IN and
out along the valley below. He notices the
flowers and what they are. and tells what birds he
sees He observes how the miserable, patched
cabins OF the peasantry contrast with the
splendid entrances to the estates of the landed
aristocracy. Blarney Castle be considers a
pretty good specimen of ruin, having ivy in
side aud out, and coming up to ones expecta-
tions. He gives some dates and facts about it
out of his guide book. The Blarney stone, he
says. is about two feet below the summit
of the tower, and is held in its place by
iron stanchions. One must lie at full length
and reach over, with friend holding ones feet,
in order to kiss it. The editor, thinking proba-
bly, that this came in the line of his business,
performed the difficult feat, took look at the
surrounding country, gave the old woman who
keeps the tower bit of silver, got back into
his jaunting-car and ratified off.
DR.. Field comes next He is a bit more SEN
timental than the editor. beginning with a two
line quotation of poetry about the month of
May.
The corn was springlng fresh and green,
The lark sang loud and high
He notices the white and green of the haw-
thorn in the hedgerows. The jaunting car he
leaves to the readers imagination. Blarney
Castle must have been lordly castle in its days
of pride, he thinks. He regrets the ugly holes
which Cromwell knocked in its sides. He de.
lights in the ivy. I'VE all climbed to the top"
he says, where hangs in air, fastened by iron
clamps in its place. the famous Blarney stone
gift of eloquence which will make one success
full in love and in life" He does not venture
however to kiss it. DR.. SHAFT, who is in the party
pokes it with his stick, thinking perhaps to get
some Inspiration from even such a long distant
touch. They descend and find another Blarney
stone lying on the ground which several of the
party enthusiastically kiss, mot to catch any
mysterious virtue from the stone but the fla
vor of thousands of fair lips that had kissed it
before" Then the parson goes off into a dis
sertation upon castles and what exceedingly
uncomfortable places they must have been to
live in, and he congratulates himself that one
fortunate individual with whom he is pretty
well acquainted owns a little cottage among
the Berkshire Hills of New England which has
more comfort in it in day than any naughty
baron passing his existence in gloomy
grandeur and buried in sepulchral
gloom" could have in 30 years
And then there is discoursIve comment
- rSuh harr md fbnf,
quoting, among others, this one: May ye ride
in fine carriage, and the mud of your wheels
splash the face of your inimies"-then with
quick turn-'though 1 know ye haven't any!
MIR, SESSIONS describes a jaunting-car, ex
planning that what we call coaches they
call cars on the other side, and vice versa. and
adding that jaunting-car would make people
stare if it were driven through the streets of
Columbus. Blarney Castle is grand old
ruin" and is "said to have been originally the
home of the royal McCarthys." This fact
which escaped our other two observers, may
perhaps indicate that Mr.. Sessions has political
aspirations and is looking after Irish votes. The
Blarney stone hangs near the top of the south
ern wall, and ''only fools" Mr.. Sessions quotes
approvingly only fools l risk Their neeks in
forms us that bright English girl at the hotel
told him that it would do just as well to kiss
somebody who had kissed (which she had
not. 1t was holiday In blarney, somebody of
high degree having a wedding in his family.
There is a dinner free to all, and music by 'the
Dutch band from Cork" Then Mr.. Sessions
visits the Cork County Annual Fair, and tells
the price of cattle. He notes that farm
laborers and men who hire out get So so a week
and board themselves"
Any one of these three books offer attrac-
tions to that large number of unfortunate
people who journey to Europe only in an easy
chair with their feet on the fender.
A float in the Forest (Worthlngton Co.; ]. R.
~ Weldin & Coz is Captain Mayne Reid's
favorite boys book in cheap form-a good book
to reprint. Rothermal, a Story of Lost Identity,
(The American News Company is by Louis