The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1893-04-22
AN INCURABLE HOPEFULNESS,

AN INCURABLE HOPEFULNESS.
Who is she?
We all asked the question when
we saw her coming into the room.
She was dressed simply in black vel
vet, with no distraction in the way
of thinning Oh either waist or skirt.
She wore black bonnet. Her hair
was light, her face lovely. She
moved about near the door little
mere than the rest of us, and bowed
glaciously to several people.
She was woman you would have
noticed anywhere She was grace
ful, with an easy dignity of bearing.
You recognize at once she was
accustomed to many people. and
from the way she now and then
glanced over the room, you per-
ceived that while nothing escaped
ner, nothing distracted her. There
was something in her face as you
looked at her that drew you to her.
You felt a power without compre-
hending it, were conscious of both
sympathy in her and what is always
rare with sympathy-poise.
When we asked the question we
were sitting in a house fronting on
Gramercy Park. We had gone
there to hear Mrs. Ernest Hart talk
about the Irish industries ofDonegal.
A large white sheet in one of
the folding doorways prepared us
for illustrations. Mr.. Choate was
to take the chair at four.
The rooms filled rapidly. Many
ladies came, some Roman Catholic
priests, and we'll known men. Mr.,
Robert Underwood Johnson, of the
| Century, introduced the speaker
We then understood at once why ii
had been that the graceful woman
moving about near the door had at
tracled us. She was no other than
Mrs. Ernest Hart herself.
1t was she who, during the course
of the lecture, made use of the ex,
preston found at the head of this
sketch. 81 have worked" she said,
in the face of many difficulties. THAI
| have succeeded at all may be be
cause of what my husband SO often
says OF me, that am afflicted with
an incurable hopefulness. Mrs
Hart's husband is editor of the
British Medical Journal.
1t was in 1883 that Mrs. Hart
accompanying her husband, made
her first visit into what are called
the congested districts of Donega
county, Mr.. Hart having gone there
to study into the causes OF the re
current famines in that greatly mis-
understood and much to be pitiec
region-that region of interminabl'
bogs, shut up in by mountains OF
one side, and cut off from the sea Oh
the other. By congested we are t.
understand, by the way, those dis
tricts in which most of the trouble O
country centres.
After careful study Mrs. Hart wa
forced to the conclusion that mucl
misrepresentation i'll regard to tn
causes OF distress in Donegal aros
from the habit of speaking Of tn
people there as tenant farmers.
We laughed that afternoon with un
thinking spontaneous merrimen
when Donegal farm was shown u
in a picture on the sheet, so mucl
more quickly does the grotesqu
appeal to most of US than the pathe
tic. For the farm we saw-and thl
particular farm was typical OF tn
rest-was hardly larger than tn
parlor in which we were then sitting
The cultivated spots were bu
patches bet Yeen the stones, bigge
stones and bowlers being scattere
in every direction. Some poor pea
= SAINT was digging his potatoes anon
them, he being one of the me
i whom it was customary for the Eng
n lishman to speak as tenant farmel
and for us to mentally compare vii
our own independent and prospe
Gus cultivators of the soil. 1t W;
the picture Of forlorn man in TO
10 lorn place. 1t was easy to see,
Mrs. Hart spoke, what the troub
was, and that remedy for it could
applied only by considering the 81
uation not from the agricultur
D point of view, but from that OF labo
For there was nothing for any or
to do in Donegal county, nobody
buy and nowhere to sell. More tn;
enough potatoes necessary for Il
consumption Of mans fami
must remain as an unused surpl
= on his hands, unless he we're willil
to play the philanthropist, givil
them to a nelghbor neither rich
nor poorer than himself. Theso