Summary
Dingle, Thursday.—Such a day of impressions as yesterday, I think I never passed; I would that I had time and patience to describe fully, and accurately, all I saw and felt—but I have neither. A note-book, after all, is an offhand business, where the shreds and patches of uncertain memory are stored up, which if hastily recorded, often become perfectly unintelligible. But truly, it requires greater energy than I possess, to sit down late in the evening, when fatigued by a long day's expedition, and rendered lazy by a late dinner, to take pen in hand, and commence minutely detaining all that has been seen, and felt, and admired; then to think over again the thoughts excited by the many objects that were examined, the people that were met, and the country that was traversed—and then to write all this! It is indeed a hard task to shake off the heavy indolence of a still evening, when one's friends are contentedly sleeping by the chimney corner, and one's own eyelids deliberately inform one of their intention of closing for the night in spite of all remonstrance and opposition. I am therefore often obliged to scramble over these notes of my rambles through the wild west, in the best and most rapid way I can, remembering that to-morrow I am called to—
“Fresh fields, and pastures new.”
This morning, during the pause of breakfast, our movements for the day formed the subject of conversation.
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- Rambles in the South of Ireland during the Year 1838 , pp. 160 - 191Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1839