A lively French writer, who travelled in Ireland in the early part of the nineteenth century, was evidently much smitten with the fair sex.
"The greatest gaiety reigns there,--in fact, the belles of Galway are capable of instructing most French young ladies in the art of coquetry. In the early morning, one sees five or six young ladies, perched upon a jaunting-car, go two miles from the city to refresh their charms by a sea bath, and in the afternoon, if there be no assembly, they go from shop to shop, buying, laughing, and chatting with their friends. There are many in this city who grow old without knowing it."
All of which seems a simple and innocuous enough amusement. In spite of which, however, no very apparent coquettishness on the part of Galway young ladies is to be noted to-day,--at least, it has not been observed by the writer of this book. Perhaps that merely points to a lack of susceptibility on his part.
T. P. O'Connor once told the story of a travelling showman who brought to Galway from America a panorama of America. "He knew what he was about," said Mr. O'Connor, "when he declared that Chesapeake Bay was the finest bay in the world with two exceptions,--the Bay of Naples and the Bay of Galway; and he was very loudly cheered.
"Without exaggeration, it is a beautiful bay, almost landlocked, with mountains--small enough in comparison with others, but to the untravelled eye of the Irish villager solemn and imposing as the Matterhorn--bounding it on the far side, and with a somewhat narrow mouth opening out into the Atlantic. A mouth that, under the light of morning or evening, is something to suggest either the vastness of this world of human beings, or the anticipation of the greater vastness of that other world beyond, which haunted the imaginations and thoughts of the pious Catholics of that region."
These few lines serve to give a most truthful word-picture of Galway Bay; and also a glimpse of the brilliancy with which Mr. O'Connor writes. Continuing, Mr. O'Connor writes of his school-days in Ireland thus, in words which give a far more sympathetic and clear knowledge of things as they are--or were--than most reminiscences of a like nature:
"There had come to my native town of Athlone a new school, and it was but natural that my father should like me to go there, and, accordingly, I had no more of Galway--except at vacation-time--for five long years.