Another, having felt over our skulls, gravely asserts, "There is a _vis à tergo_ of wickedness implanted in us, that must find vent in murder and bloodshed." While the magnetic folk would make us believe that we are merely a kind of ambulating electric-machine, to be charged at will by the first M. Lafontaine we meet with, and mayhap explode from over-pressure.
While such liberties are taken with us without, the case is worse within. Our circulation is a hydraulic problem; our stomach is a mill--a brewing vat--a tanner's yard--a crucible, or a retort. You yourself, in all the resplendent glory of your braided frock, and your decoration of the Guelph, are nothing but an aggregate of mechanical and chemical inventions, as often going wrong as right; and your wife, in the pride of her Parisian bonnet, and robe _à la Victorine_, is only gelatine and adipose substance, phosphate of lime, and a little arsenic.
Now, let me ask, what remains to us of life, if we are to be robbed of every fascination and charm of existence in this fashion? And again--has medical science so exhausted all the details of practical benefit to mankind, that it is justified in these far-west explorations into the realms of soaring fancy, or the gloomy depths of chemical analysis? Hydrophobia, consumption, and tetanus are not so curable that we can afford to waste our sympathies on chimpanzees: nor is this world so pleasant that we must deny ourselves the advantage of all its illusions, and throw away the garment in which Nature has clothed her nakedness. No, no. There was sound philosophy in Peter, in the "Tale of a Tub," who assured his guests that whatever their frail senses might think to the contrary, the hard crusts were excellent and tender mutton; but I see neither rhyme nor reason in convincing us, that amid all the triumphs of turtle and white bait, Ardennes ham and _pâté de Strasbourg_, our food is merely coke and glue, roach, lime, starch, and magnesia.
"God made the country," said the poet: but in my heart I believe he might have added--"The devil made architects." Few cities--I scarcely know of one--can boast of such environs as Dublin. The scenery, diversified in its character, possesses attraction for almost every taste: the woody glade--the romantic river--the wild and barren mountain--the cultivated valley--the waving upland--the bold and rocky coast, broken with promontory and island--are all to be found, even within a few miles of the capital; while, in addition, the nature of our climate confers a verdure and a freshness unequalled, imparting a depth and colour to the landscape equal to this beauty of its outline.