y kind reader's consideration if I say
that, with all these excellences, and many others besides, they became
soon inexpressibly tiresome to me. There was not a theme they spoke on
that I had not already by heart. Irish grievances, in all their moods
and tenses, had been always "stock pieces" in my father's cabin, and
I am bound to acknowledge that the elder Cregan had a sagacity
of perception, a shrewdness of discrimination, and an aptitude of
expression not to be found every day. Listening to the Culliuanes after
him was like hearing the butler commenting in the servants' hall over
the debate one had listened to in "the House." It was a strange, queer
sensation that I felt coming over me as we travelled along day by day
together, and I can even now remember the shriek of ecstasy that escaped
me one morning when I had hit upon the true analysis of my feelings,
and, jumping up, I exclaimed, "Con, you _are_ progressing, my boy; you
'll be a gentleman yet; you have learned to be '_bored' already!_" From
that hour I cultivated "my Cullinanes" as people take a course of a Spa,
where, nauseous and distasteful at the time, one fancies he is to store
up Heaven knows how many years of future health and vigor.

In a former chapter of these Confessions I have told the reader the
singular sensations I experienced when first under the influence of port
wine: how a kind of trausfusion, as it were, of Conservative principles,
a respect for order, a love of decorum, a sleepy indisposition to see
anything like confusion going on about me,--all feelings which, I take
it, are eminently gentleman-like. Well, this fastidious weariness of
the Cullinanes was evidently the "second round of the ladder." "It is a
grand thing to be able to look down upon any one!" I do not mean this
in any invidious or unworthy sense; not for the sake of depreciating
others, but purely for the sake of one's own self-esteem. I would
but convey that the secret conviction of superiority is amazingly
exhilarating. To "hold your stride" beside an intellect that you can
pass when you like, and yet merely accompany to what is called "make
a race," is rare fun; to see the other using every effort of whip and
spur, bustling, shaking, and lifting, while you, well down in your
saddle, never put the rowel to the flank of your fancy,--this is indeed
glorious sport! In return for this, however, there is an intolerable
degree of lassitude in the daily association of people who