"Lough Derg is a large sheet of water surrounded by black bogs relieved only by few detached cabins and patches of cultivation and its groups of islands..."
"Though my letters are wild as the mountains in which they were written, still do I feel myself very sober in thought, and exceedingly (excessive) in love with truth even to the prejudice of all national feelings…"
"Lough Derg has certainly been well chosen as a spot of religious penitence and seclusion, for the character of its scenery harmonises well with such a feeling; it is that of wild and gloomy loneliness."
"But the breeze gradually dropped. Large splashes of calm, glazy-looking water appeared here and there, spreading by little and little over the whole surface, while the rises became more and more infrequent, and, before a dozen fish had been caught,…