These pictures, thus engraved in his memory, he
may safely leave to be entered in his journal, night or morning: but
groups and scenes which ought to be quite as interesting, because they
reveal the thoughts and ways of men, (the more familiarly the more
faithfully,) should be as earnestly observed; and, to give them a chance
of equal preservation, they should be noted on the instant. If a
foreigner opens his eyes after a nap in travelling an Irish road, would
it not be wise to note at once what he sees that he could not see
elsewhere? He perceives that the green lanes which branch off from the
road are more crowded with foliage, and less definite in their windings,
than any other green lanes he has seen near high roads. The road itself
is _sui generis_, with its border of rank grass, with tufts of
straggling briers, and its rough stone walls, fringed with weeds, and
gay with wild flowers. A beggarly wretch is astride on the top, singing
the Doxology to the tune of Paudeen O'Rafferty, and keeping time with
his heels: and, some way off, an old man crouches in the grass, playing
cards,--the right hand against the left,--reviling the winner, and
tenderly consoling the loser. Presently the stranger passes a roofless
hut, where he sees, either a party of boys and girls throwing turf for a
handful of meal, or a beggar-woman and her children resting in the shade
of the walls to eat their cold potatoes. Such scenes could be beheld
nowhere but in Ireland: but there is no country in the world where
groups and pictures as characteristic do not present themselves to the
observing eye, and in such quick succession that they are liable to be
confused and lost, if not secured at the moment by brief touches of
pencil or pen. The note-book should be the repository of such.

Mechanical methods are nothing but in proportion to the power which uses
them; as the intellectual accomplishments of the traveller avail him
little, and may even bring him back less wise than he went out,--a
wanderer from truth, as well as from home,--unless he sees by a light
from his heart shining through the eyes of his mind. He may see, and
hear, and record, and infer, and conclude for ever; and he will still
not understand if his heart be idle,--if he have not sympathy. Sympathy
by itself may do much: with fit intellectual and mechanical aids, it
cannot but make the traveller a wise man. His journey may be but for a
brief year, or even month; but if, by his own