Had I
been a man, I am sure I should have been guilty of some rash
act of interference; nor do I believe that such a scene could
have been acted in the presence of Englishmen without instant
punishment being inflicted; not to mention the salutary
discipline of the treadmill, which, beyond all question, would,
in England, have been applied to check so turbulent and so
vicious a scene.
After the first wild burst that followed their prostration, the
meanings, in many instances, became loudly articulate; and I then
experienced a strange vibration between tragic and comic feeling.
A very pretty girl, who was kneeling in the attitude of Canova's
Magdalene immediately before us, amongst an immense quantity of
jargon, broke out thus: "Woe! woe to the backsliders! hear it,
hear it Jesus! when I was fifteen my mother died, and I
backslided, oh Jesus, I backslided! take me home to my mother,
Jesus! take me home to her, for I am weary! Oh John Mitchel!
John Mitchel!" and after sobbing piteously behind her raised
hands, she lifted her sweet face again, which was as pale as
death, and said, "Shall I sit on the sunny bank of salvation with
my mother? my own dear mother? oh Jesus, take me home, take me
home!" Who could refuse a tear to this earnest wish for death in
one so young and so lovely? But I saw her, ere I left the
ground, with her hand fast locked, and her head supported by a
man who looked very much as Don Juan might, when sent back to
earth as too bad for the regions below.
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