131 files changed, 11085 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/22264-8.txt b/22264-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..92ce02f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3645 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Irish Books and Irish People, by Stephen Gwynn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Irish Books and Irish People
+
+Author: Stephen Gwynn
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22264]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH BOOKS AND IRISH PEOPLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ IRISH BOOKS
+ AND IRISH PEOPLE
+
+ By
+
+ STEPHEN GWYNN.
+
+
+ DUBLIN
+ The Talbot Press Ltd.
+ 89 Talbot Street
+
+ LONDON
+ T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.
+ 1 Adelphi Terrace
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+                                                                     Page
+ INTRODUCTION                                                           1
+
+ NOVELS OF IRISH LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY                         7
+
+ A CENTURY OF IRISH HUMOUR                                             23
+
+ LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES:
+
+   I.--THE SHANACHY                                                    44
+
+   II.--THE LIFE OF A SONG                                             51
+
+ IRISH EDUCATION AND IRISH CHARACTER                                   65
+
+ THE IRISH GENTRY                                                      83
+
+ YESTERDAY IN IRELAND                                                  97
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+My publisher must take at least some of the responsibility for reviving
+these essays. All bear the marks of the period at which they were
+written; and some of them deal with the beginnings of movements which
+have since grown to much greater strength, and in growing have developed
+new characteristics at the expense of what was originally more
+prominent. Other pages, again, take no account of facts which to-day
+must be present to the mind of every Irish reader, and so are, perhaps
+significantly, out of date. Nobody for instance, could now complain that
+Irish humour is lacking in seriousness. Synge disposed of that
+criticism--and, indeed, the Abbey Theatre in its tone as a whole may be
+accused of neglecting Ireland's gift for simple fun. Yet Lady Gregory
+made the most of it in her "Spreading the News," and Mr. Yeats in his
+"Pot of Broth."--How beautifully W. G. Fay interpreted an Irish laughter
+which had no bitterness in it.
+
+But the strong intellectual movement which has swept over Ireland has
+been both embittering and embittered. These last five and twenty years
+have been the most formative in the country's history of any since
+Ireland became the composite nation that she now is, or, perhaps, has
+yet to become. At the back of it all lies the great social change
+involved in the transfer of ownership from the landlord to the
+cultivators of the soil--a change which has literally disenserfed
+three-fourths of Ireland's people. Yet the relations are obscure,
+indefinite, and intangible, which unite that material result to the
+outcome of two forces, allied but distinct, which have operated solely
+on men's minds and spirits. These are, of course, the Gaelic revival and
+the whole literary movement which has had its most concrete expression
+in the Irish theatre, and its most potent inspiration in the personality
+of Mr. Yeats.
+
+Of these two forces, one can show by far the more tangible effects, for
+the Gaelic League has issued in action. Setting out to revive and save
+the Irish language as a living speech, the instrument of a nation's
+intercourse, it has failed of its purpose; but it has revived and
+rendered potent the principle of separation. Nationalist, it will have
+nothing to do with a nationality that is not as plainly marked off from
+other nationalities as a red lamp from a green lamp; and the essential
+symbol of separate nationality is for orthodox Gaelic Leaguers a
+separate language. America, said an able exponent of this doctrine the
+other day in a public debate, will never and never can be a nation till
+its language is no longer recognisable as English--till its English
+differs as much from the language of England as German differs from
+Dutch. An inevitable corollary to this view is the necessity for
+complete political separation from Great Britain--if only to provide the
+machinery for this complete differentiation by daily speech.
+
+I cannot pretend to assess impartially the value of this movement. It
+asserted itself in passionate deeds at a moment when many thousands of
+us Nationalists were taking equally vigorous action in pursuit of a
+less tribal ideal. Thousands of us lost our lives, all of us risked our
+lives, with the hope of achieving a national unity which could never be
+built on the basis of regarding no man as an Irishman who did not speak,
+or at least desire to speak, Gaelic for his mother tongue. The action of
+Irish soldiers was thwarted and frustrated by the action of a very few
+separatists, with a very small expense to themselves in bloodshed. But
+the tribute to the work of the Gaelic League is that Ireland accepted
+them and rejected us. None can deny that it has been a potent stimulus
+to national education; and it only lacks official prohibition by the
+British Government to become more powerful still.
+
+Whatever the outcome, I take back nothing of what is written in these
+papers concerning the Gaelic revival. In a country governed against the
+will of its people, forces that, under normal and healthy conditions,
+would be purely beneficent, may easily grow explosive and disruptive.
+Yet I have not changed my mind on a critical question which led me to
+sever my connection with the work of the Gaelic League. When that body
+decided to rely on compulsion rather than persuasion, it took the wrong
+road, if its object was to endear the Irish language to all Ireland, and
+to induce all Irishmen to cherish it as part of the common national
+heritage. As a result Ulstermen have a perfect right to say that if they
+accepted Home Rule, one of the first steps of an Irish government formed
+under the present auspices would be to demand a knowledge of Gaelic as
+the necessary qualification for holding any public office.
+
+I do not believe that this tribal idealism which is now so potent will
+endure. It is out of harmony with the world's development--a world which
+in order to preserve the very principle of small nationalities, is
+growing more and more international. America is not only a nation, but
+is the type of the modern nation--bound together less by what it
+inherits from the past, than by what it hopes from the future.
+
+The other force which has been operating through these years is, in a
+sense, obliged to give the lie to the pretensions of the Gaelic League.
+Yeats and Synge have showed how completely it is possible to be Irish
+while using the English language. They have accepted the fact that
+Ireland to-day thinks in English, but they have endeavoured to give to
+Ireland a distinctively Irish thought, coloured by the whole racial
+tradition and temperament. With them has been allied a personality not
+less Irish, yet less obviously Irish--"A.E.," George Russell. Between
+them, these writers and thinkers have profoundly influenced the mind of
+the generation younger than themselves. It is not possible to deny that
+Ireland's literary output during those last twenty years is far more
+important and serious than that of the whole preceding century. The only
+part of it exempt from these influences is the work of Edith Somerville
+and Martin Ross; and even that is based on a closer study of
+distinctively Irish speech than had ever been attempted in earlier days.
+The propagandist work of Pearse and Arthur Griffiths--equal in merit to
+that of their forerunners, Davis and Mitchel--was Irish only in
+substance and spirit, not in form or accent--a thing the less
+surprising, since both men were only half Irish by parentage. But the
+whole group of writers, of whom it may be said that their writings are
+almost as unmistakably Irish as the work of Burns is Scotch, have
+followed Mr. Yeats and Synge in this, that in writing they assume an
+Irish public, not an English one; they make no explanations, they speak
+as to those who share their own inheritance. In this group has been
+fostered a spirit of the freedom which belongs properly to art. Thus the
+school, for it may justly be called a school, has created its own
+tradition, and it has been a tradition of freedom, not asserted but
+exercised: a freedom, not as against England, but as against all the
+world. Everywhere, but especially in countries undergoing revolutionary
+change, there is a tyranny of the crowd. When the Gaelic League decided
+to make the learning of Irish compulsory, it attorned to this tyranny.
+On the other hand, Mr. Yeats, at a moment when the Abbey Theatre seemed
+about to become popular, was threatened by a fiat of this
+mob-dictatorship; he was told that his theatre must become unpopular
+unless he would throw overboard most of Synge's work. By the stand which
+he then made he did a greater service to freedom of the mind in Ireland
+than has yet been at all recognised; he helped to make his country
+fearless and strong. Thanks mainly to him and to those who worked with
+him, Ireland's thought is freer and more outspoken; there is more
+thought in Ireland than there used to be. This does not make the country
+easier to govern, and just now, Ireland, if given the opportunity, would
+have a hard task to govern itself. But Ireland would not be the only
+country in the world in that predicament. The schoolmaster has been
+abroad, and where you have education without liberty there is bound to
+be trouble. The only cure is, not to suppress education, but to give the
+responsibility of freedom.
+
+I have left these papers in order as they were written, with dates
+annexed. One of them, _Literature among the Illiterates_, was published
+in an earlier volume, _To-day and To-morrow in Ireland_ which is now out
+of print. I include it here, because it completes the companion essay,
+called _The Life of a Song_.
+
+My acknowledgments are due to the various publications in which they
+have all, except the last, previously appeared.
+
+<sc>Dublin</sc>, _March_, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS OF IRISH LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+"What Ireland wants," said an old gentleman not very long ago, "is a
+Walter Scott." The remedy did not seem very practical, since Walter
+Scotts will not come to order, but the point of view is worth noting,
+for there you touch the central fact about Irish literature. We desire a
+Walter Scott that he may glorify our annals, popularise our legends,
+describe our scenery, and give an attractive view of the national
+character. In short, we know that Ireland possesses pre-eminently the
+quality of picturesqueness, and we should like to see it turned to good
+account. We want a Walter Scott to advertise Ireland, and to fill the
+hotels with tourists; but as for desiring to possess a great novelist
+simply for the distinction of the thing, probably no civilised people on
+earth is more indifferent to the matter. At present, indeed, a Walter
+Scott, should he appear in Ireland, would be apt to have a cold welcome.
+To write on anything connected with Irish history is inevitably to
+offend the Press of one party, and very probably of both. Lever is less
+of a caricaturist than Dickens, yet Dickens is idolised while Lever has
+been bitterly blamed for lowering Irish character in the eyes of the
+world; the charge is even repeated in the _Dictionary of National
+Biography_. That may be patriotic sentiment, but it is not criticism.
+
+Literature in Ireland, in short, is almost inextricably connected with
+considerations foreign to art; it is regarded as a means, not as an end.
+During the nineteenth century the belief being general among all classes
+of Irish people that the English know nothing of Ireland, every book on
+an Irish subject was judged by the effect it was likely to have upon
+English opinion, to which the Irish are naturally sensitive, since it
+decides the most important Irish questions. But apart from this
+practical aspect of the matter, there is a morbid national sensitiveness
+which desires to be consulted. Ireland, though she ought to count
+herself amply justified of her children, is still complaining that she
+is misunderstood among the nations; she is for ever crying out for
+someone to give her keener sympathy, fuller appreciation, and exhibit
+herself and her grievances to the world in a true light. The result is
+that kind of insincerity and special pleading which has been the curse
+of Irish or Anglo-Irish literature. I write of a literature which has
+its natural centre in Dublin, not in Connemara; which looks eastward,
+not westward. That literature begins with the _Drapier Letters_: it
+continues through the great line of orators in whom the Irish genius (we
+say nothing of the Celtic) has found its highest expression; and it
+produced its first novelist, perhaps also its best, in the unromantic
+person of Maria Edgeworth.
+
+Miss Edgeworth had a sound instinct for her art, disfigured though her
+later writings are by what Madame de Staęl called her _triste utilité_.
+Her first story is her most artistic production. _Castle Rackrent_ is
+simply a pleasant satire upon the illiterate and improvident gentry who
+have always been too common in her country. In this book she holds no
+brief; she never stops to preach; her moral is implied, not expressed. A
+historian might, it is true, go to _Castle Rackrent_ for information
+about the conditions of land tenure as well as about social life in the
+Ireland of that day; but the erudition is part and parcel of her story.
+Throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, setting aside great towns,
+the main interest of life for all classes is the possession of land.
+Irish peasants seldom marry for love, they never murder for love; but
+they marry and they murder for land. To know something of the
+land-question is indispensable for an Irish novelist, and Miss Edgeworth
+graduated with honours in this subject. She was her father's agent; when
+her brother succeeded to the property she resigned, but in the troubles
+of 1830 she was recalled to the management, and saved the estate.
+_Castle Rackrent_ is, therefore, like Galt's _Annals of the Parish_, a
+historical document; but it is none the worse story for that. The
+narrative is put dramatically into the mouth of old Thady, a lifelong
+servant of the family. Thady's son, Jason Quirk, attorney and agent to
+the estate, has dispossessed the Rackrents; but Thady is still "poor
+Thady," and regards the change with horror. Before recounting the
+history of his own especial master and patron, Sir Condy Rackrent, last
+of the line, Thady gives his ingenuous account of the three who
+previously bore the name; Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, and Sir Kit. Sir
+Patrick, the inventor of raspberry whiskey, died at table: "Just as the
+company rose to drink his health with three cheers, he fell down in a
+sort of fit, and was carried off; they sat it out, and were surprised in
+the morning to find that it was all over with poor Sir Patrick." That
+no gentleman likes to be disturbed after dinner, was the best recognised
+rule of life in Ireland; if your host happened to have a fit, you knew
+he would wish you to sit it out. Gerald Griffin in _The Collegians_
+makes the same point with his usual vigour. A shot is heard in the
+dining-room by the maids downstairs. They are for rushing in, but the
+manservant knows better: "Sure, don't you know, if there was anyone shot
+the master would ring the bell." After Sir Patrick, who thus lived and
+died, to quote his epitaph, "a monument of old Irish hospitality," came
+Sir Murtagh, "who was a very learned man in the law, and had the
+character of it"; another passion that seems to go with the land-hunger
+in Ireland. Sir Murtagh married one of the family of the Skinflints:
+"She was a strict observer for self and servants of Lent and all fast
+days, but not holidays." However, says Thady (is there not a strong
+trace of Swift in all this?).
+
+     "However, my lady was very charitable in her own way. She had a
+     charity school for poor children, where they were taught to read
+     and write gratis, and where they were well kept to spinning gratis
+     for my lady in return; for she had always heaps of duty yarn from
+     the tenants, and got all her household linen out of the estate from
+     first to last; for after the spinning, the weavers on the estate
+     took it in hand for nothing, because of the looms my lady's
+     interest could get from the Linen Board to distribute gratis....
+     Her table the same way, kept for next to nothing; duty fowls, and
+     duty turkeys, and duty geese came as fast as we could eat them, for
+     my lady kept a sharp look-out and knew to a tub of butter
+     everything the tenants had all round.... As for their young pigs,
+     we had them, and the best bacon and hams they could make up, with
+     all young chickens in the spring; but they were a set of poor
+     wretches, and we had nothing but misfortunes with them, always
+     breaking and running away. This, Sir Murtagh and my lady said, was
+     all their former landlord, Sir Patrick's fault, who let 'em get the
+     half year's rent into arrear; there was something in that, to be
+     sure. But Sir Murtagh was as much the contrary way--"
+
+I have abridged my lady's methods, and I omit Sir Murtagh's, who taught
+his tenants, as he said, to know the law of landlord and tenant. But,
+"though a learned man in the law, he was a little too incredulous in
+other matters." He neglected his health, broke a blood-vessel in a rage
+with my lady, and so made way for Sir Kit the prodigal. Sir Kit was shot
+in a duel, and Sir Condy came into an estate which, between Sir
+Murtagh's law-suits and Sir Kit's gaming, was considerably embarrassed;
+indeed, the story proper is simply a history of makeshifts to keep rain
+and bailiffs out of the family mansion. Poor Sir Condy; he was the very
+moral of the man who is no man's enemy but his own, and was left at the
+last with no friend but old Thady. Even Judy Quirk turned against him,
+forgetting his goodness in tossing up between her and Miss Isabella
+Moneygawl, the romantic lady who eloped with him after the toss. She
+deserted before Judy; here is a bit of the final scene. Thady was going
+upstairs with a slate to make up a window-pane.
+
+     "This window was in the long passage, or gallery, as my lady gave
+     orders to have it called, in the gallery leading up to my master's
+     bedchamber and hers. And when I went up with the slate, the door
+     having no lock, and the bolt spoilt, was ajar after Mrs. Jane (my
+     lady's maid), and as I was busy with the window, I heard all that
+     was saying within. 'Well, what's in your letter, Bella, my dear?'
+     says he. 'You're a long time spelling it over.' 'Won't you shave
+     this morning, Sir Condy?' says she, and put the letter into her
+     pocket. 'I shaved the day before yesterday,' says he, 'my dear, and
+     that's not what I'm thinking of now; but anything to oblige you,
+     and to have peace and quietness, my dear,'--and presently I had the
+     glimpse of him at the cracked glass over the chimney-piece,
+     standing up shaving himself to please my lady."
+
+However, the quarrel comes on in a delightful scene, where Sir Condy
+shows himself at all events an amiable gentleman; and so my lady goes
+home to her own people. There you have Miss Edgeworth at her very best;
+and, indeed, _Castle Rackrent_ received such a tribute as no other novel
+ever had paid to it. Many people have heard how when _Waverley_ came to
+the Edgeworth household, Mr. Edgeworth, after his custom, read it aloud
+almost, as it would appear, at one sitting. When the end came for that
+fascinated circle, amid the chorus of exclamations, Mr. Edgeworth said:
+"What is this? _Postscript which ought to have been a preface_." Then
+there was a chorus of protests that he should not break the spell with
+prose. "Anyhow," he said, "let us hear what the man has to say," and so
+read on to the passage where Scott explained that he desired to do for
+Scotland what had been done for Ireland: "to emulate the admirable
+fidelity of Miss Edgeworth's portraits." What Maria Edgeworth felt we
+know from the letter she posted off "to the Author of 'Waverley,' _Aut
+Scotus aut Diabolus_."
+
+It would be unkind to compare Scott with his model. For the poetry and
+the tragic power of his novels one would never think of looking in Miss
+Edgeworth. Her work is compact of observation; yet the gifts she has are
+not to be under-valued. She is mistress of a kindly yet searching
+satire, real wit, a fine vein of comedy; and she can rise to such true
+pathos as dignifies the fantastic figure of King Corny in _Ormond_,
+perhaps the best thing she ever did. But she had in her father a
+literary adviser, not of the negative but of the positive order, and
+there never was a more fully developed prig than Richard Edgeworth. His
+view of literature was purely utilitarian; to convey practical lessons
+was the business of all superior persons, more particularly of an
+Edgeworth. In _Castle Rackrent_ his suggestions and comments are happily
+relegated to the position of notes; in the other books they form part
+and parcel of the novel. _The Absentee_, for instance, contains
+admirable dialogue and many life-like figures; but the scheme of the
+story conveys a sense of unreality. Every fault or vice has its
+counterbalancing virtue represented. Lady Clonbroney, vulgarly ashamed
+of her country, is set off by the patriotic Lady Oranmore; the virtuous
+Mr. Burke forms too obvious a pendant to the rascally agents old Nick
+and St. Dennis. It is needless to say that the exclusively virtuous
+people are deadly dull. It is the novel with a purpose written by a
+novelist whose strength lies in the delineation of character. Miss
+Edgeworth can never carry you away with her story, as Charles Reade
+sometimes can, and make you forget and forgive the virtuous intention.
+
+What was unreal in Miss Edgeworth became mere insincerity in her
+contemporary, Lady Morgan. Few people could tell you now where Thackeray
+got Miss Glorvina O'Dowd's baptismal name; yet _The Wild Irish Girl_ had
+a great triumph in its day, and Glorvina stood sponsor to the milliners'
+and haberdashers' inventions ninety years before the apotheosis of
+Trilby. _O'Donnell_, which is counted Lady Morgan's best novel, gives a
+lively ideal portrait of the authoress, first as the governess-grub,
+then transformed by marriage into the butterfly-duchess. But the book is
+a thinly-disguised political pamphlet. "Look," she says in effect, "at
+the heroic virtues of O'Donnell, the young Irishman, driven to serve in
+foreign armies, despoiled of his paternal estates by the penal laws;
+look at the fidelity, the simplicity, the native humour (so dramatically
+effective) of his servant Rory; and then say if you will not plump for
+Catholic Emancipation." "My dear lady," the reader murmurs, "I wondered
+why you were so set upon underlining all these things. Can you not tell
+us a story frankly, and let us alone with your conclusions?"
+
+Unfortunately, very much the same has to be said of a far greater
+writer, William Carleton, even in those tales which are based upon his
+own most intimate experience. _The Poor Scholar_, his most popular
+story, proceeds directly from an episode in his own life. He had himself
+been a poor scholar, had set out from his northern home to walk to
+Munster, where the best known schools were, trusting to charity by the
+way to lodge him, and to charity to keep him throughout his schooling
+for the sake of his vocation, and for the blessing sure to descend upon
+those who aided a peasant's son to become a priest. Nothing could be
+more vivid than the early scenes, the collection made at the altar for
+Jimmy McEvoy, the priest's sermon, the boy's parting from home, and the
+roadside hospitality; there is one infinitely touching episode in the
+house of the first farmer who shelters him. Then come the school itself,
+and the tyranny of its master, till the boy falls sick of a fever, and
+is turned out of doors. Then, alas, the conventional intervenes in the
+person of the virtuous absentee ignorant of his agent's misdoings: the
+long arm of coincidence is stretched to the uttermost; and we have to
+wade through pages of discussion upon the relations of landlord and
+tenant till we are put wholly out of tune for the beautiful scene of
+Jimmy's return home in his priestly dress.
+
+Carleton did for the peasantry what Miss Edgeworth had done for the
+upper classes. In her books the peasants have only an incidental part,
+and she describes them shrewdly and sympathetically enough, but with a
+mind untouched either by their faith or by their superstitions; seeing
+their good and bad qualities clearly in a dry light, but never in
+imagination identifying herself with them. Superior to Miss Edgeworth in
+power and insight, he is immeasurably her inferior in literary skill.
+One should remember, in commenting upon the poverty of Irish literature
+in English, that, so far as concerns imaginative work, it began in the
+nineteenth century. Carleton only died in 1869, Miss Edgeworth in 1849;
+and before them there is no one.
+
+On the other hand the speech of Lowland Scots, with whose richness in
+masterpieces our poverty is naturally contrasted, has been employed for
+literature as long as the vernacular English. A king of Scotland wrote
+admirable verse in the generation after Chaucer; the influence of the
+Court fostered poetry, and the close intercourse with France kept Scotch
+writers in touch with first-rate models. Dunbar, strolling as a friar in
+France, may have known Villon, whom he often resembles. In Ireland, till
+a century ago, English was as much a foreign language as Norman French
+in England under the Plantagenets. Among the English Protestants,
+settled in Ireland, and separated by a hard line of cleavage from the
+Catholic population, there arose great men in letters, Goldsmith, Burke,
+Sheridan, who showed their Irish temperament in their handling of
+English themes. But in Ireland itself, before the events of 1782 added
+importance to Dublin, there was no centre for a literature to gather
+round. Such national pride as exists in English-speaking Ireland dates
+from the days of Grattan and Flood. And Irish national aspirations still
+bear the impress of their origin amid that period of political turmoil,
+than which nothing is more hostile to the brooding care of literary
+workmanship, the long labour and the slow result. Irishmen have always
+shown a strong disinclination to pure literature. The roll of Irish
+novelists is more than half made up of women's names; Miss Edgeworth,
+Lady Morgan, Miss Emily Lawless, and Miss Jane Barlow. Journalists
+Ireland has produced as copiously as orators; the writers of _The Spirit
+of the Nation_, that admirable collection of stirring poems, are
+journalists working in verse; and Carleton, falling under their
+influence, became a journalist working in fiction. In his pages, even
+when the debater ceases to argue and harangue, the style is still
+journalistic, except in those passages where his dramatic instinct puts
+living speech into the mouths of men and women. Politics so monopolise
+the minds of Irishmen, newspapers so make up their whole reading, that
+the class to which Carleton and the poet Mangan belonged have never
+fully entered upon the heritage of English literature. If an English
+peasant knows nothing else, he knows the Bible and very likely Bunyan;
+but a Roman Catholic population has little commerce with that pure
+fountain of style. Genius cannot dispense with models, and Carleton and
+Mangan had the worst possible. Yet when it has been said that Carleton
+was a half-educated peasant, writing in a language whose best literature
+he had not sufficiently assimilated to feel the true value of words, it
+remains to be said that he was a great novelist. He cannot be fairly
+illustrated by quotation; but read any of his stories and see if he does
+not bring up vividly before you Ireland as it was before the famine;
+Ireland still swarming with beggars who marched about in families
+subsisting chiefly on the charity of the poor; Ireland of which the
+hedge-school was plainly to him the most characteristic institution.
+
+Carleton does not stand by himself; he is the head and representative of
+a whole class of Irish novelists, among whom John Banim is the best
+known name. All of them were peasants who aimed at depicting scenes of
+peasant life from their own experience. What one may call the
+melodramatic Irish story, in which Lever was so brilliantly successful,
+has its first famous example in _The Collegians_ of Gerald Griffin. The
+novel has no concern with college life, and is far better described by
+its stage-title, _The Colleen Bawn_. Here at least is a man with a story
+to tell and no object but to tell it. Griffin belonged to the lay order
+of Christian Brothers: his book deals principally with a society no more
+familiar to him than was the household of Mr. Rochester to Charlotte
+Brontë; and his method recalls the Brontës by its strenuous imagination
+and its vehement painting of passion. The tale was suggested by a murder
+which excited all Ireland. A young southern squire carried off a girl
+with some money, and procured her death by drowning. He was arrested at
+his mother's house and a terrible scene took place, terribly rendered in
+the book. Griffin, of course, changes the motive; the girl is carried
+off not for money but for love, and she is sacrificed to make way for a
+stronger passion. Eily O'Connor, the victim, is a pretty and pathetic
+figure; the hero-villain Hardress Cregan, and the mother who indirectly
+causes the crime, are effective though melodramatic; but the actual
+murderer, Danny the Lord, Hardress Cregan's familiar, is worthy of Scott
+or Hugo.
+
+In his sketches of society, Hyland Creagh, the duellist, old Cregan, and
+the rest, Griffin is describing a state of affairs previous to his own
+experience, the Ireland of Sir Jonah Barrington's memoirs; he is not, as
+were Carleton and Miss Edgeworth, copying minutely from personal
+observation. Herein he resembles Lever who, when all is said and done,
+remains the chief, as he is the most Irish, of Irish novelists. It is
+true that Lever had two distinct manners: and in his later books he
+deals chiefly with contemporary society, drawing largely on his
+experiences of diplomatic life. Like most novelists he preferred his
+later work; but the books by which he is best known, _Harry Lorrequer_
+and the rest, are his earliest productions; and though his maturer skill
+was employed on different subjects, he formed his imagination in studies
+of the Napoleonic Wars and of a duelling, drinking, bailiff-beating
+Ireland. His point of view never altered, and the peculiar attraction of
+his writings is always the same. Lever's books have the quality rather
+of speech than of writing; wherever you open the pages there is always a
+witty, well-informed Irishman discoursing to you, who tells his story
+admirably, when he has one to tell, and, failing that, never fails to be
+pleasant. Irish talk is apt to be discursive; to rely upon a general
+charm diffused through the whole, rather than upon any quotable
+brilliancy; its very essence is spontaneity, high spirits, fertility of
+resource. That is a fair description of Lever. He is never at a loss. If
+his story hangs, off he goes at score with a perfectly irrelevant
+anecdote, but told with such enjoyment of the joke that you cannot
+resent the digression. Indeed the plots are left pretty much to take
+care of themselves; he positively preferred to write his stories in
+monthly instalments for a magazine; he is not a conscientious artist,
+but he lays himself out to amuse you, and he does it. If he advertises a
+character as a wit, he does not labour phrases to describe his
+brilliancy; he produces the witticisms. He has been accused of
+exaggeration. As regards the incidents, one can only say that the
+memoirs of Irish society at the beginning of this century furnish at
+least fair warranty for any of his inventions. In character-drawing he
+certainly overcharged the traits: but he did so with intention, and by
+consistently heightening the tones throughout obtained an artistic
+impression, which had life behind it, however ingeniously travestied.
+His stories have no unity of action, but through a great diversity of
+characters and incidents they maintain their unity of treatment. That is
+not the highest ideal of the novel, but it is an intelligible one, not
+lacking famous examples; and Lever perfectly understood it.
+
+If one wishes to realise how good an artist Lever was, the best way is
+to read his contemporary Samuel Lover. _Handy Andy_ appeared somewhat
+later than _Harry Lorrequer_. It is just the difference between good
+whiskey and bad whiskey; both are indigenous and therefore
+characteristic, but let us be judged by our best. Obviously the men have
+certain things in common; great natural vivacity, and an easy cheerful
+way of looking at life. Lover can raise a laugh, but his wit is
+horseplay except for a few happy phrases. He has no real comedy; there
+is nothing in _Handy Andy_ half so ingenious as the story in _Jack
+Hinton_ of the way Ulick Bourke acquitted himself of his debt to Father
+Tom. And behind all Lever's conventional types there is a real fund of
+observation and knowledge which is absolutely wanting in Lover, who
+simply lacked the brains to be anything more than a trifler.
+
+A very different talent was that of their younger contemporary J.
+Sheridan Le Fanu. The author of _Uncle Silas_ had plenty of solid power;
+but his art was too highly specialised. No one ever succeeded better in
+two main objects of the story-teller; first, in exciting interest, in
+stimulating curiosity by vague hints of some dreadful mystery; and then
+in concentrating attention upon a dramatic scene. It is true that,
+although an Irishman, he gained his chief successes with stories that
+had an English setting; but one of the best, _The House by the
+Churchyard_, describes very vividly life at Chapelizod in the days when
+this deserted little village, which lies just beyond the Phoenix Park,
+was thickly peopled with the families of officers stationed in Dublin.
+Yet somehow one does not carry away from the reading of it any picture
+of that society; the story is so exciting that the mind has no time to
+rest on details, but hurries on from clue to clue till finally and
+literally the murder is out. Books which keep a reader on the
+tenter-hooks of conjecture must always suffer from this undue
+concentration of the interest; and in spite of cheery, inquisitive Dr.
+Toole, and the remarkable sketch of Black Dillon, the ruffianly genius
+with a reputation only recognised in the hospitals and the police-courts
+(a character admirably invented and admirably used in the plot) one can
+hardly class Le Fanu among those novelists who have left memorable
+presentments of Irish life. It is a pity; for plainly, if the man had
+cared less for sensational incident and ingenious construction, he might
+have sketched life and character with a strong brush and a kind of grim
+realism.
+
+Realism Lever does not aim at: he declines to be on his oath about
+anything. What he gives one, vividly enough, is national colour, not
+local colour; he is essentially Irish, just as Fielding is essentially
+English; but he aims at verisimilitude rather than veracity. The ideal
+of the novel has changed since his day. Compare him with the two ladies
+who stand out prominently among contemporary writers of Irish fiction,
+Miss Jane Barlow and Miss Emily Lawless. To begin with, Lever's stories
+are always concerned with the Quality; peasants only come in for an
+underplot, or in subordinate parts; and the gentry all through Ireland
+resemble one another within reasonable limits. It is different with the
+peasantry. In every part of Ireland you will find people who have never
+been ten miles away from the place of their birth, and upon whom a local
+character is unmistakably stamped. The contemporary novelists delight to
+mark these differences, these salient points of singularity; and their
+studies are chiefly of the peasantry. They settle down upon some little
+corner of the country and never stir out of it. Miss Lawless is not
+content to get you Irish character; she must show you a Clare man or an
+Arran islander, and she is at infinite pains to point out how his
+nature, even his particular actions, are influenced by the place of his
+bringing up. Lever avoids this specialisation; he prefers a stone wall
+country for his hunting scenes, but beyond that he goes no further into
+details. Again Miss Lawless both in _Grania_ and in _Hurrish_ makes you
+aware that young Irishmen of Hurrish's class are curiously indifferent
+to female beauty. Lever will have none of that: his Irishman must be "a
+divil with the girls," although Lever is no sentimentalist, and does not
+talk of love matches among the Irish peasantry.
+
+The greatest divergence of all, however, is in the temper attributed to
+the Irish. Lever makes them gay, Miss Lawless and Miss Barlow make them
+sad. No one denies that sadness is nearer the reality, but it is
+unreasonable to call Lever insincere. Naturally careless and
+lighthearted he does not trouble himself with the riddle of the painful
+world; the distress which touches him most nearly is a distress for
+debt. But if Lever is not realistic he is natural; he follows the law
+of his nature as an artist should; he sees life through his own medium;
+and if books are to be valued as companions, not many of them are better
+company than _Charles O'Malley_ or _Lord Kilgobbin_; for first and last
+Lever was always himself.
+
+Yet, I must own it, it does not do to read Lever soon after Miss Barlow.
+Her stories of Lisconnel and its folk have a tragic dignity wholly out
+of his range. It is a sad-coloured country she writes of, gray and
+brown; sodden brown with bog water, gray with rock cropping up through
+the fields; the only brightness is up overhead in the heavens, and even
+they are often clouded. These sombre hues, with the passing gleam of
+something above them, reflect themselves in every page of her books. She
+renders that complete harmony between the people and their surroundings
+which is only seen in working folk whose clothes are stained with the
+colour of the soil they live by, and whose lives assimilate themselves
+to its character. She has a fineness of touch, a poetry, to which no
+other Irish story-teller has attained.
+
+Yet, Miss Barlow has never succeeded with a regular novel: and she may
+have been only a forerunner. All great writers proceed from a school,
+and there does exist now undeniably a school of Irish literature which
+differs from Miss Edgeworth in being strongly tinged with the element of
+Celtic romance, from Carleton in possessing an admirable standard of
+style, and from Lever in aiming at a sincere and vital portraiture of
+Irish life.
+
+1897.
+
+
+
+
+A CENTURY OF IRISH HUMOUR.
+
+
+In a preface to the French translation of Sienkiewicz's works, M. de
+Wyzewa, the well-known critic, himself a Pole, makes a suggestive
+comparison between the Polish and the Russian natures. The Pole, he
+says, is quicker, wittier, more imaginative, more studious of beauty,
+less absorbed in the material world than the Russian--in a word,
+infinitely more gifted with the artistic temperament; and yet in every
+art the Russian has immeasurably outstripped the Pole. His explanation,
+if not wholly convincing, is at least suggestive. The Poles are a race
+of dreamers, and the dreamer finds his reward in himself. He does not
+seek to conquer the world with arms or with commerce, with tears or with
+laughter; neither money tempts him nor fame, and the strenuous,
+unremitting application which success demands, whether in war, business,
+or the arts, is alien to his being.
+
+The same observation and the same reasoning apply with equal force to
+the English and the Irish. No one who has lived in the two countries
+will deny that the Irish are apparently the more gifted race; no one can
+deny, if he has knowledge and candour, that the English have
+accomplished a great deal more, the Irish a great deal less. Nowhere is
+this more evident than in the productions of that faculty which Irishmen
+have always been reputed, and justly reputed, to possess in peculiar
+measure--the faculty of humour. Compare Lever, who for a long time
+passed as the typical Irish humorist, with his contemporaries Thackeray
+and Dickens. The comparison is not fair, but it suggests the central
+fact that the humour of Irish literature is deficient in depth, in
+intellectual quality, or, to put it after an Irish fashion, in gravity.
+
+'Humorous' is a word as question-begging as 'artistic,' and he would be
+a rash man who should try to define either. But so much as this will
+readily be admitted, that humour is a habit of mind essentially complex,
+involving always a double vision--a reference from the public or normal
+standard of proportion to one that is private and personal. The humorist
+refuses to part with any atom of his own personality, he stamps it on
+whatever comes from him. "If reasons were as plenty as blackberries,"
+says Falstaff, achieving individuality by the same kind of odd
+picturesque comparison as every witty Irish peasant uses in talk, to the
+delight of himself and his hearers. But the individuality lies deeper
+than phrases: Falstaff takes his private standard into battle with him.
+There is nothing more obviously funny than the short paunchy man, let us
+not say cowardly, but disinclined to action, who finds himself engaged
+in a fight. Lever has used him a score of times (beginning with Mr.
+O'Leary in the row at a gambling-hall in Paris), and whether he runs or
+whether he fights, his efforts to do either are grotesquely laughable.
+Shakespeare puts that view of Falstaff too: Prince Hal words it. But
+Falstaff, the humorist in person, rises on the field of battle over the
+slain Percy and enunciates his philosophy of the better part of valour.
+Falstaff's estimate of honour--"that word honour" ("Who hath it? he that
+died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it?"), the "grinning honour" that Sir
+Walter Blunt wears where the Douglas left him--is necessary to complete
+the humorist's vision of a battle-piece. Lever will scarcely visit you
+with such reflections, for the humorist of Lever's type never stands
+apart and smiles; he laughs loud and in company. Still less will he give
+you one of those speeches which are the supreme achievement of this
+faculty, where the speaker's philosophy is not reasoned out liked
+Falstaff's, but revealed in a flash of the onlooker's insight. Is it
+pardonable to quote the account of Falstaff's death as the hostess
+narrates it?
+
+     "How now, Sir John, quoth I, what, man! be of good cheer. So a'
+     cried out God, God, three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid
+     him a' should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to
+     trouble himself with any such thoughts yet."
+
+Humour can go no farther than that terrible, illuminating phrase, which
+is laughable enough, heaven knows, but scarce likely to make you laugh.
+Contrast the humour of that with the humour of such a story as Lever
+delighted in. There were two priests dining with a regiment, we all have
+read in _Harry Lorrequer_, who chaffed a dour Ulster Protestant till he
+was the open derision of the mess. Next time they returned, the
+Protestant major was radiant with a geniality that they could not
+explain till they had to make their way out of barracks in a hurry, and
+found that the countersign (arranged by the major) was "Bloody end to
+the Pope." Told as Lever tells it, with all manner of jovial
+amplifications, that story would make anyone laugh. But it does not go
+deep. The thing is funny in too obvious a way; the mirth finds too large
+an outlet in laughter; it does not hang about the brain, inextricable
+from the processes of thought; it carries nothing with it beyond the
+jest. And just as tears help to an assuaging of grief, so in a sense
+laughter makes an end of mirth. Give a feeling its instinctive vent, and
+you will soon be done with it, like the child who laughs and cries
+within five minutes; check it, and it spreads inward, gaining in
+intellectual quality as it loses in physical expression. The moral is,
+that if you wish to be really humorous you must not be too funny; and
+the capital defect of most Irish humour is that its aim is too
+simple--it does not look beyond raising a laugh.
+
+There are brilliant exceptions in the century that lies between Sheridan
+and Mr. Bernard Shaw, between Maria Edgeworth and Miss Barlow. But
+serious art or serious thought in Ireland has always revealed itself to
+the English sooner or later as a species of sedition, and the Irish have
+with culpable folly allowed themselves to accept for characteristic
+excellences what were really the damning defects of their work--an easy
+fluency of wit, a careless spontaneity of laughter. They have taken
+Moore for a great poet, and Handy Andy for a humorist to be proud of.
+Yet an Irishman who wishes to speak dispassionately must find humour of
+a very different kind from that of _Handy Andy_ or _Harry Lorrequer_
+either, to commend without reserve, as a thing that may be put forward
+to rank with what is best in other literatures.
+
+Taking Sheridan and Miss Edgeworth as marking the point of departure, it
+becomes obvious that one is an end, the other at a beginning. Sheridan
+belongs body and soul to the eighteenth century; Miss Edgeworth, though
+her name sounds oddly in that context, is part and parcel of the
+romantic movement. The "postscript which ought to have been a preface"
+to _Waverley_ declared, though after Scott's magnificent fashion, a real
+indebtedness. Sheridan's humour, essentially metropolitan, had found no
+use for local colour; Miss Edgeworth before Scott proved the artistic
+value that could be extracted from the characteristics of a special
+breed of people under special circumstances in a special place. Mr.
+Yeats, who, like all poets, is a most suggestive and a most misleading
+critic, has declared that modern Irish literature begins with Carleton.
+That is only true if we are determined to look in Irish literature for
+qualities that can be called Celtic--if we insist that the outlook on
+the world shall be the Catholic's or the peasant's. Miss Edgeworth had
+not a trace of the Celt--as I conceive that rather indefinite
+entity--about her; but she was as good an Irish woman as ever walked,
+and there are hundreds of Irish people of her class and creed looking at
+Irish life with kindly humorous Irish eyes, seeing pretty much what she
+saw, enjoying it as she enjoyed it, but with neither her power nor her
+will to set it down. _Castle Rackrent_ is a masterpiece; and had Miss
+Edgeworth been constant to the dramatic method which she then struck out
+for herself, with all the fine reticences that it involved, her name
+might have stood high in literature. Unhappily, her too exemplary father
+repressed the artist in her, fostered the pedagogue, and in her later
+books she commits herself to an attitude in which she can moralise
+explicitly upon the ethical and social bearings of every word and
+action. The fine humour in _Ormond_ is obscured by its setting; in
+_Castle Rackrent_ the humour shines. Sir Condy and his lady we see none
+the less distinctly for seeing them through the eyes of old Thady, the
+retainer who narrates the Rackrent history; and in the process we have a
+vision of old Thady himself. Now and then the novelist reminds us of her
+presence by some extravagantly ironic touch, as when Thady describes Sir
+Condy's anger with the Government "about a place that was promised him
+and never given, after his supporting them against his conscience very
+honourably and being greatly abused for, he having the name of a great
+patriot in the country." Thady would hardly have been so ingenuous as
+that. But for the most part the humour is truly inherent in the
+situation, and you might look far for a better passage than the
+description of Sir Condy's parting with his lady. But it is better to
+illustrate from a scene perhaps less genuinely humorous, but more
+professedly so--Sir Condy's wake. Miss Edgeworth does not dwell on the
+broad farce of the entertainment; she does not make Thady eloquent over
+the whisky that was drunk and the fighting that began and so forth, as
+Lever or Carleton would certainly have been inclined to do. She fixes on
+the central comedy of the situation, Sir Condy's innocent vanity and its
+pitiable disappointment--is it necessary to recall that he had arranged
+for the wake himself, because he always wanted to see his own funeral?
+Poor Sir Condy!--even Thady, who was in the secret, had forgotten all
+about him, when he was startled by the sound of his master's voice from
+under the greatcoats thrown all atop.
+
+     "'Thady,' says he, 'I've had enough of this; I'm smothering and
+     can't hear a word of all they're saying of the deceased.' 'God
+     bless you, and lie still and quiet a bit longer,' says I, 'for my
+     sister's afraid of ghosts, and would die on the spot with fright if
+     she was to see you come to life all on a sudden this way without
+     the least preparation.' So he lays him still, though well-nigh
+     stifled, and I made haste to tell the secret of the joke,
+     whispering to one and t'other, and there was a great surprise, but
+     not so great as he had laid out there would. 'And aren't we to have
+     the pipes and tobacco after coming so far to-night?' said some one;
+     but they were all well enough pleased when his honour got up to
+     drink with them, and sent for more spirits from a shebeen house
+     where they very civilly let him have it upon credit. So the night
+     passed off very merrily; but to my mind Sir Condy was rather upon
+     the sad order in the midst of it all, not finding there had been
+     such great talk about himself after his death as that he had always
+     expected to hear."
+
+In the end Sir Condy died, not by special arrangement. "He had but a
+poor funeral after all," is Thady's remark; and you see with the kindly
+double vision of the humorist Thady's sincere regret for the
+circumstance that would most have afflicted the deceased, as well as the
+more obviously comic side of Thady's comment and Sir Condy's lifelong
+aspiration. Indeed, the whole narrative is shot with many meanings, and
+one never turns to it without a renewed faculty of laughter.
+
+If it were necessary to compare true humour with the make-believe, a
+comparison might be drawn between Thady and the servant in Lady Morgan's
+novel _O'Donnell_. Rory is the stage Irishman in all his commonest
+attitudes. But it is better to go straight on, and concern ourselves
+solely with the work of real literary quality, and Carleton falls next
+to be considered.
+
+Of genius with inadequate equipment it is always difficult to speak.
+Carleton is the nearest thing to Burns that we have to show; and his
+faults, almost insuperable to the ordinary reader, are the faults which
+Burns seldom failed to display when writing in English. But to Burns
+there was given an instrument perfected by long centuries of use--the
+Scotch vernacular song and ballad; Carleton had to make his own, and the
+genius for form was lacking in him. Some day there may come a man of
+pure Irish race who will be to Carleton what Burns was to Ferguson, and
+then Ireland will have what it lacks; moreover, in the light of his
+achievement we shall see better what the pioneer accomplished. Every
+gift that Carleton had--and pathos and humour, things complementary to
+each other, he possessed in profusion--every gift is obscured by faulty
+technique. Nearly every trait is overcharged; for instance, in his story
+of the _Midnight Mass_ he rings the changes interminably upon the old
+business of the wonderful medicine in the vagrants' blessed horn that
+had a strong odour of whisky; but what an admirably humorous figure is
+this same Darby O'More! Out of the _Poor Scholar_ alone, that inchoate
+masterpiece, you could illustrate a dozen phases of Carleton's mirth,
+beginning with the famous sermon where the priest so artfully wheedles
+and coaxes his congregation into generosity towards the boy who is going
+out on the world, and all the while unconsciously displays his own
+laughable and lovable weaknesses. There you have the double vision, that
+helps to laugh with the priest, and to laugh at him in the same breath,
+as unmistakably as in the strange scene of the famine days where the
+party of mowers find Jimmy sick of the fever by the wayside and "schame
+a day" from their employer to build him a rough shelter. That whole
+chapter, describing the indefatigable industry with which they labour
+on the voluntary task, their glee in the truantry from the labour for
+which they are paid, their casuistry over the theft of milk for the
+pious purpose of keeping the poor lad alive, the odd blending of
+cowardice and magnanimity in their terror of the sickness and in their
+constant care that some one should at least be always in earshot of the
+boy, ready to pass in to him on a long-handed shovel what food they
+could scrape up, their supple ingenuity in deceiving the pompous
+landlord who comes to oversee their work,--all that is the completest
+study in existence of Irish character as it came to be under the system
+of absolute dependence. There is nothing so just as true humour, for by
+the law of its being it sees inevitably two sides; and this strange
+compound of vices and virtues, so rich in all the softer qualities, so
+lacking in all the harder ones, stands there in Carleton's pages,
+neither condemned nor justified, but seen and understood with a kindly
+insight. Carleton is the document of documents for Ireland in the years
+before the famine, preserving a record of conditions material and
+spiritual, which happily have largely ceased to exist, yet operate
+indefinitely as causes among us, producing eternal though eternally
+modifiable effects.
+
+But, for the things in human nature that are neither of yesterday,
+to-day, nor to-morrow, but unchangeable, he has the humorist's true
+touch. When the poor scholar is departing, and has actually torn himself
+away from home, his mother runs after him with a last token--a small
+bottle of holy water. "Jimmy, alanna," said she, "here's this an' carry
+it about you--it will keep evil from you; an' be sure to take good care
+of the written characther you got from the priest an' Squire Benson;
+an', darlin', don't be lookin' too often at the cuff o' your coat, for
+feard the people might get a notion that you have the banknotes sewed in
+it. An', Jimmy agra, don't be too lavish upon their Munsther crame; they
+say 'tis apt to give people the ague. Kiss me agin, agra, an' the
+heavens above keep you safe and well till we see you once more."
+
+Through all that catalogue of precautions, divine and human, one feels
+the mood between tears and laughter of the man who set it down. But I
+think you only come to the truth about Carleton in the last scene of
+all, when Jimmy returns to his home, a priest. Nothing could be more
+stilted, more laboured, than the pages which attempt to render his
+emotions and his words, till there comes the revealing touch. His mother
+at sight of him, returned unlooked-for after the long absence, loses for
+a moment the possession of her faculties, and cannot be restored. At
+last, "I will speak to her," said Jimmy, "in Irish; it will go directly
+to her heart." And it does.
+
+Carleton never could speak to us in Irish; the English was still a
+strange tongue on his lips and in the ears of those he lived among; and
+his work comes down distracted between the two languages, imperfect and
+halting, only with flashes of true and living speech.
+
+When you come to Lever, it is a very different story. Lever was at no
+lack for utterance; nobody was ever more voluble, no one ever less
+inclined to sit and bite his pen, waiting for the one and only word.
+Good or bad, he could be trusted to rattle on; and, as Trollope said, if
+you pulled him out of bed and demanded something witty, he would flash
+it at you before he was half awake. Some people are born with the
+perilous gift of improvisation; and the best that can be said for Lever
+is that he is the nearest equivalent in Irish literature, or in English
+either, to the marvellous faculty of D'Artagnan's creator. He has the
+same exuberance, the same inexhaustible supply of animal spirits, of
+invention that is always spirited, of wit that goes off like fireworks.
+He delighted a whole generation of readers, and one reader at least in
+this generation he still delights; but I own that to enjoy him you must
+have mastered the art of skipping. Whether you take him in his earlier
+manner, in the "Charles O'Malley" vein of adventure, fox-hunting,
+steeple-chasing, Peninsular fighting, or in his later more intellectual
+studies of shady financiers, needy political adventurers, and the whole
+generation of usurers and blacklegs, he is always good; but alas and
+alas, he is never good enough. His work is rotten with the disease of
+anecdote; instead of that laborious concentration on a single character
+which is necessary for any kind of creative work, but above all for
+humorous creation, he presents you with a sketch, a passing glimpse, and
+when you look to see the suggestion followed out he is off at score with
+a story. In the first chapter of _Davenport Dunn_, for instance, there
+is an Irish gentleman on the Continent, a pork-butcher making his first
+experience of Italy, hit off to the life. But a silhouette--and a very
+funny silhouette--is all that we get of Mr. O'Reilly, and the figures
+over whom Lever had taken trouble--for in that work Lever did take
+trouble--are not seen with humour. Directly he began to think, his
+humour left him; it is as if he had been funny in watertight
+compartments. And perhaps that is why, here as elsewhere, he shrank from
+the necessary concentration of thought.
+
+There is always a temptation to hold a brief for Lever, because he has
+been most unjustly censured by Irishmen, even in so august and impartial
+a court as the _Dictionary of National Biography_, as if he had traduced
+his countrymen. Did Thackeray, then, malign the English? The only charge
+that may fairly be brought against him is the one that cannot be
+rebutted--the charge of superficiality and of scamped work, of a humour
+that only plays over the surface of things--a humour which sees only the
+comic side that anybody might see. And because I cannot defend him, I
+say no more. Lever is certainly not a great humorist, but he is
+delightful company.
+
+One may mention in passing the excursions into broad comedy of another
+brilliant Irishman--Le Fanu's short stories in the _Purcell Papers_,
+such as the _Quare Gander_, or _Billy Molowney's Taste of Love and
+Glory_. These are good examples of a particular literary type--the
+humorous anecdote--in which Irish humour has always been fertile, and of
+which the _ne plus ultra_ is Sir Samuel Ferguson's magnificent squib in
+Blackwood, _Father Tom and the Pope_. Everybody knows the merits of that
+story, its inexhaustible fertility of comparison, its dialectic
+ingenuity, its jovialty, its drollery, its Rabelaisian laughter. But,
+after all, the highest type of humour is humour applying itself to the
+facts of life, and this is burlesque humour squandering itself in riot
+upon a delectable fiction. Humour is a great deal more than a
+plaything; it is a force, a weapon--at once sword and shield. If there
+is to be an art of literature in Ireland that can be called national, it
+cannot afford to devote humour solely to the production of trifles.
+_Father Tom_ is a trifle, a splendid toy; and what is more, a trifle
+wrought in a moment of ease by perhaps the most serious and
+conscientious artist that ever made a contribution to the small body of
+real Irish literature in the tongue that is now native to the majority
+of Irishmen.
+
+Of contemporaries, with one exception, I do not propose to speak at any
+length, nor can I hope that my review will be complete. There is first
+and foremost Miss Barlow, a lady whose work is so gentle, so unassuming,
+that one hears little of it in the rush and flare of these strident
+times, but who will be heard and listened to with fresh emotion as the
+stream is heard when the scream and rattle of a railway train have
+passed away into silence. Is she a humorist? Not in the sense of
+provoking laughter--and yet the things that she sees and loves and
+dwells on would be unbearable if they were not seen through a delicate
+mist of mirth. The daily life of people at continual handgrips with
+starvation, their little points of honour, their little questions of
+precedence, the infinite generosity that concerns itself with the
+expenditure of six-pence, the odd shifts they resort to that a gift may
+not have the appearance of charity,--all these are set down with a
+tenderness of laughter that is peculiarly and distinctively Irish.
+
+Yet, though we may find a finer quality of humour in those writers who
+do not seek to raise a laugh--for instance, the subtle pervasive humour
+in Mr. Yeats's _Celtic Twilight_--still there are few greater
+attractions than that of open healthy laughter of the contagious sort;
+and it would be black ingratitude not to pay tribute to the authoresses
+of _Some Experiences of an Irish R.M._--a book that no decorous person
+can read with comfort in a railway carriage. These ladies have the
+keenest eye for the obvious humours of Irish life, they have abundance
+of animal spirits, and they have that knack at fluent description
+embroidered with a wealth of picturesque details that is shared by
+hundreds of peasants in Ireland, but is very rare indeed on the printed
+page. And, mingling with the broad farce there is a deal of excellent
+comedy--for instance, in the person of old Mrs. Knox of Aussolas. But
+there is the same point to insist on--and since these witty and
+delightful ladies have already the applause of all the world one insists
+less unwillingly--this kind of thing, admirable as it is, will not
+redeem Irish humour from the reproach of trifling. But in the novel,
+_The Real Charlotte_, there is humour as grim almost as Swift's--and as
+completely un-English; it is a humour which assuredly stirs more
+faculties than the simple one of laughter.
+
+There is indeed a literature which, if not always exactly humorous, is
+closely allied to it--the literature of satire and invective; and in
+this Ireland has always been prolific. In the days of the old kings the
+order of bards had grown so numerous, that they comprised a third of the
+whole population, and they devoted themselves with such talent and zeal
+to the task of invective that no man could live in peace, and the
+country cried out against them, and there was talk of suppressing the
+whole order. The king spared them on condition that they would mend
+their manners. We have those bards still, but nowadays we call them
+politicians and journalists; and frankly I think we are ripe for another
+intervention, if only in the interests of literature. So much good
+talent goes to waste in bad words; and, moreover, an observance of the
+decencies is always salutary for style. And it seems that as the years
+have gone on, humour has diminished in Irish politics, while bad humour
+has increased; and therefore I leave alone any attempt to survey the
+humour of the orators, though Curran tempts one at the beginning and Mr.
+Healy at the close. Of purely literary satire there has been little
+enough, apart from its emergence in the novel; but there is one example
+which deserves to be recalled. I have never professed enthusiasm for
+Thomas Moore, but I am far indeed from agreeing with a recent critic who
+would claim literary rank for him rather in virtue of the _Fudge Family_
+than of the Irish Melodies. That satire does not seem to get beyond
+brilliancy; it is very clever, and not much more. Still, there are
+passages in it which cannot be read without enjoyment; and one quotation
+may be permitted, since it puts with perfect distinctness what it is
+always permissible to put--the English case against Ireland.
+
+    I'm a plain man who speak the truth.
+      And trust you'll think me not uncivil
+    When I declare that from my youth
+      I've wished your country at the devil.
+    Nor can I doubt indeed from all
+      I've heard of your high patriot fame,
+    From every word your lips let fall,
+      That you most truly wish the same.
+
+    It plagues one's life out; thirty years
+      Have I had dinning in my ears--
+    Ireland wants this and that and t'other;
+      And to this hour one nothing hears
+    But the same vile eternal bother.
+      While of those countless things she wanted,
+    Thank God, but little has been granted.
+
+The list of writers of humorous verse in Ireland is a long one, but a
+catalogue of ephemera. Even Father Prout at this time of day is little
+more than a dried specimen labelled for reference, or at most preserved
+in vitality by the immortal _Groves of Blarney_. But neither that work,
+nor even _The Night before Larry was stretched_, nor Le Fanu's ballad of
+_Shemus O'Brien_, can rank altogether as literature. About the humorous
+song I need only say that, so far as my experience goes, there is one,
+and one only, which a person with no taste for music and some taste for
+literature can hear frequently with pleasure, and that song of course is
+_Father O'Flynn_. To recall the delightful ingenuity and the nimble wit
+shown by another Irishman of the same family in the _Hawarden Horace_,
+and in a lesser degree by Mr. Godley in his _Musa Frivola_, leads
+naturally to the inquiry why humour from Aristophanes to Carlyle has
+always preferred the side of reaction--a question that would need an
+essay, or a volume, all to itself.
+
+But the central question is after all why in a race where humour is so
+preponderant in the racial temperament does so little of the element
+crystallise itself in literature. Humour ranks with the water power as
+one of the great undeveloped resources of the country. Something indeed
+has been done in the past with the river of laughter that almost every
+Irish person has flowing in his heart; but infinitely more might be
+done if these rivers were put in harness.
+
+Yet, take away two Irish names from the field of modern comedy in the
+English language written during the nineteenth century, and you have
+uncommonly little for which literary merit can be claimed. The quality
+of Oscar Wilde's is scarcely disputed. There is the more reason to dwell
+on Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays, because they have not even in the twentieth
+century been fully accepted by that queer folk, the theatre-going
+public. But I never yet heard of anyone who saw _You Never can Tell_,
+and was not amused by it. That was a farce, no doubt, but a farce which
+appealed to emotions less elementary than those which are touched by the
+spectacle of a man sitting down by accident on his hat; it was a farce
+of intellectual absurdities, of grotesque situations arising out of
+perversities of character and opinion; a farce that you could laugh at
+without a loss of self-respect. But it is rather by his comedies than by
+his farces that Mr. Shaw should be judged. If they are not popular, it
+is for a very good reason: Mr. Shaw's humour is too serious. His humour
+is a strong solvent, and one of the many things about which this
+humorist is in deadly earnest is the fetish worship of tradition. To
+that he persists in applying--in _Candida_ as in half a dozen other
+plays--the ordeal by laughter--an ordeal which every human institution
+is bound to face. _Candida_ will not only make people laugh, it will
+make them think; and it is not easy to induce the public to think after
+dinner on unaccustomed lines. They will laugh when they have been used
+to laugh, weep when they have been used to weep; but if you ask them to
+laugh when they expect to weep, or _vice versâ_, the public will resent
+the proceeding. The original humorist, like every other original artist,
+has got slowly and laboriously to convert his public before he can
+convince them of his right to find tears and laughter where he can.
+
+Whatever Mr. Shaw touches, whether it be the half-hysterical impulse
+that sometimes passes current for heroism, as in _Arms and the Man_, or,
+as in the _Devil's Disciple_, the conventional picturesqueness of a Don
+Juan--that maker of laws, breaker of hearts, so familiar with the
+limelight, so unused to the illumination by laughter, who finds himself
+in the long run deplorably stigmatised as a saint--there is a flood of
+light let in upon all manner of traditional poses, literary
+insincerities that have crept into life. There are few things of more
+value in a commonwealth than such a searching faculty of laughter. Like
+Sheridan, Mr. Shaw lives in England, and uses his comic gift for the
+most part on subjects suggested to him by English conditions of life,
+but with a strength of intellectual purpose that Sheridan never
+possessed. Irishmen may wish that he found his material in Ireland. But
+an artist must take what his hand finds, and there is no work in the
+world more full of the Scottish spirit or the Scottish humour than
+Carlyle's _French Revolution_. If it be asked whether Mr. Shaw's humour
+is typically Irish, I must reply by another question: "Could his plays
+have conceivably been written by any but an Irishman?"
+
+Is there, in fact, a distinctively Irish humour? In a sense, yes, no
+doubt, just as the English humour is of a different quality from the
+Greek or the French. But nobody wants to pin down English humour to the
+formula of a definition; no one wants to say, Thus far shalt thou go,
+and beyond that shalt cease to be English. Moreover, a leading
+characteristic of the Irish type is just its variety--its continual
+deviation from the normal. How, then, to find a description that will
+apply to a certain quality of mind throughout a variable race; that
+quality being in its essence the most complete expression of an
+individuality, in its difference from other individualities, since a
+man's humour is the most individual thing about him? Description is
+perhaps more possible than definition. One may say that the Irish humour
+is kindly and lavish; that it tends to express itself in an exuberance
+of phrase, a wild riot of comparisons; that it amplifies rather than
+retrenches, finding its effects by an accumulation of traits, and not by
+a concentration. The vernacular Irish literature is there to prove that
+Irish fancy gives too much rather than too little. One may observe,
+again, that a nation laughs habitually over its besetting weakness; and
+if the French find their mirth by preference in dubious adventures, it
+cannot be denied that much Irish humour has a pronounced alcoholic
+flavour. But it is better neither to define nor to describe; there is
+more harmful misunderstanding caused by setting down this or that
+quality, this or that person, as typically French, typically English,
+typically Irish, than by any other fallacy; and we Irish have suffered
+peculiarly by the notion that the typical Irishman is the funny man of
+the empire. What I would permit myself to assert is, first, that the
+truest humour is not just the light mirth that comes easily from the
+lips--that, in the hackneyed phrase, bubbles over spontaneously--but is
+the expression of deep feeling and deep thought, made possible by deep
+study of the means to express it; and secondly, that literature, which
+through the earlier part of last century never received in Ireland the
+laborious brooding care without which no considerable work of art is
+possible, now receives increasingly the artist's labour; and
+consequently that among our later humorists we find a faculty of mirth
+that lies deeper, reaches farther, judges more subtly, calls into light
+a wider complex of relations. After all, laughter is the most
+distinctive faculty of man; and I submit that, so far as literature
+shows, we Irish can better afford to be judged by our laughter now than
+a century ago.
+
+1901.
+
+
+
+
+LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES
+
+I
+
+THE SHANACHY
+
+
+There is nothing better known about Ireland than this fact: that
+illiteracy is more frequent among the Irish Catholic peasantry than in
+any other class of the British population; and that especially upon the
+Irish-speaking peasant does the stigma lie. Yet it is, perhaps, as well
+to inquire a little more precisely what is meant by an illiterate. If to
+be literate is to possess a knowledge of the language, literature, and
+historical traditions of a man's own country--and this is no very
+unreasonable application of the word--then this Irish-speaking peasantry
+has a better claim to the title than can be shown by most bodies of men.
+I have heard the existence of an Irish literature denied by a roomful of
+prosperous educated gentlemen; and, within a week, I have heard, in the
+same county, the classics of that literature recited by an Irish peasant
+who could neither write nor read. On which part should the stigma of
+illiteracy set the uglier brand?
+
+The Gaelic revival sends many of us to school in Irish-speaking
+districts, and, if it did nothing else, at least it would have sent us
+to school in pleasant places among the most lovable preceptors. It was a
+blessed change from London to a valley among hills that look over the
+Atlantic, with its brown stream tearing down among boulders, and its
+heathy banks, where the keen fragrance of bog-myrtle rose as you brushed
+through in the morning on your way to the head of a pool. Here was
+indeed a desirable academy, and my preceptor matched it. A big,
+loose-jointed old man, rough, brownish-gray all over, clothes, hair, and
+face; his cheeks were half-hidden by the traditional close-cropped
+whisker, and the rest was an ill-shorn stubble. Traditional, too, was
+the small, deep-set, blue eye, the large, kindly mouth, uttering English
+with a soft brogue, which, as is always the case among those whose real
+tongue is Irish, had no trace of vulgarity. Indeed, it would have been
+strange that vulgarity of any sort should show in one who had perfect
+manners, and the instinct of a scholar, for this preceptor was not even
+technically illiterate. He could read and write English, and Irish, too,
+which is by no means so common; and I have not often seen a man happier
+than he was over Douglas Hyde's collection of Connacht love-songs, which
+I had fortunately brought with me. But his main interest was in
+history--that history which had been rigorously excluded from his school
+training, the history of Ireland. I would go on ahead to fish a pool,
+and leave him poring over Hyde's book; but when he picked me up,
+conversation went on where it broke off--somewhere among the fortunes of
+Desmonds and Burkes, O'Neills and O'Donnells. And when one had hooked a
+large sea-trout, on a singularly bad day, in a place where no sea-trout
+was expected, it was a little disappointing to find that Charlie's only
+remark, as he swept the net under my capture, was: "The Clancartys was
+great men too. Is there any of them living?" The scholar in him had
+completely got the better of the sportsman.
+
+Beyond his historic lore (which was really considerable, and by no means
+inaccurate) he had many songs by heart, some of them made by Carolan,
+some by nameless poets, written in the Irish which is spoken to-day. I
+wrote down a couple of Charlie's lyrics which had evidently a local
+origin; but what I sought was one of the Shanachies who carried in his
+memory the classic literature of Ireland, the epics or ballads of an
+older day. Charlie was familiar, of course, with the matter of this
+"Ossianic" literature, as we all are, for example, with the story of
+Ulysses. He knew how Oisin dared to go with a fairy woman to her own
+land; how he returned in defiance of her warning; how he found himself
+lonely and broken in a changed land; and how, in the end, he gave in to
+the teaching of St. Patrick ("Sure how would he stand up against it?"
+said Charlie), and was converted to Christ. But all the mass of rhymed
+verse which relates the dialogues between Oisin and Patrick, the tales
+of Finn and his heroes which Oisin told to the Saint, the fierce answers
+with which the old warrior met the Gospel arguments--all this was only
+vaguely familiar to him. I was looking for a man who had it by heart.
+
+The search for the repositories of this knowledge leads sometimes into
+strange contrasts. One friend of mine lay stretched for long hours on
+top of a roof of sticks and peat-scraws which was propped against the
+wall of a ruined cabin, while within the evicted tenant, still clinging
+to his home as life clings to the shattered body, lay bedridden on a
+lair of rushes, and chanted the deeds of heroes; his voice issuing
+through the vent in the roof, at once window and chimney, from the
+kennel in which was neither room nor light for a man to sit and record
+the verses. My own chance was luckier and happier. It came on a day when
+a party of us had set out in quest of a remote mountain lough. Our way
+led along the river, and as we drove up to where the valley contracted,
+and the tillage land decreased in extent and fertility, the type of the
+people changed. They were Celts and Catholics, evident to the least
+practised eye. A little further still from civilisation we reached the
+fringe that was Gaelic not merely in blood; the kindly woman whose
+cottage warmed and sheltered us when we returned half-foundered from
+plunging through bogs was an Irish speaker. She had no songs herself,
+but if I wanted them her neighbour, James Kelly, was the best of
+company, and would keep me listening the length of a night.
+
+I pushed my bicycle through a drizzle of misty rain up the road over
+mountainous moor, before I saw his cottage standing trim and white under
+its thatch in a screen of trees, and as I was nearing it, the boy with
+me showed me James down in a hollow, filling a barrow with turf. He
+stopped work as I came down, and called off his dog, looking at me
+curiously enough, for, indeed, strangers were a rarity in that spot,
+clean off the tourist track, and away from any thoroughfare. One's
+presence had to be explained out of hand, and I told him exactly why I
+had come. He looked surprised and perhaps a little pleased, that his
+learning should draw students. But he made no pretence of ignorance; the
+only question was, how he could help me. Did I want songs of the modern
+kind, or the older songs of Finn Mac-Cool? If it was the latter, it
+seemed I was not well able to manage the common talk, and these songs
+were written in "very hard Irish, full of ould strong words."
+
+I should like to send the literary Irishmen of my acquaintance one by
+one to converse with James Kelly as a salutary discipline. He was
+perfectly courteous, but through his courtesy there pierced a kind of
+toleration that carried home to one's mind a profound conviction of
+ignorance. People talk about the servility of the Irish peasant. Here
+was a man who professed his inability to read or write, but stood
+perfectly secure in his sense of superior education. His respect for me
+grew evidently when he found me familiar with the details of more
+stories than he expected. I was raised to the level of a hopeful pupil.
+They had been put into English, I told him. "Oh, ay, they would be, in a
+sort of a way," said James, with a fine scorn. Soon we broke new ground,
+for James had by heart not only the Fenian or Ossianic cycle, but also
+the older Sagas of Cuchulain. He confused the cycles, it is true, taking
+the Red Branch heroes for contemporaries of the Fianna, which is much as
+if one should make Heracles meet Odysseus or Achilles in battle; but he
+had these earlier legends by heart, a rare acquirement among the
+Shanachies of to-day.
+
+Here then was a type of the Irish illiterate. A man somewhere between
+fifty and sixty, at a guess; of middle height, spare and well-knit,
+high-nosed, fine-featured, keen-eyed; standing there on his own ground,
+courteous and even respectful, yet consciously a scholar; one who had
+travelled too--had worked in England and Scotland, and could tell me
+that the Highland Gaelic was far nearer to the language of the old days
+than the Irish of to-day; finally, one who could recite without apparent
+effort long narrative poems in a dead literary dialect. When I find an
+English workman who can stand up and repeat the works of Chaucer by
+heart, then and not till then I shall see an equivalent for James Kelly.
+
+And yet it would be a different thing entirely. Chaucer has never
+survived in oral tradition. But in the West of Donegal, whence James
+Kelly's father emigrated to where I found his son, every old person had
+this literature in mind, and my friend was no exception. It is among the
+younger generation, who have been taught in the National Schools (surely
+the most ironic of all titles), that the language and the history of the
+nation are dying out. Yet that is changing. For instance, James Kelly's
+son reads and writes Irish, and on another day helped me to note down
+some of his father's lore.
+
+For it was late when I came first to the house, and though the Shanachie
+pressed me (not knowing even my name) to stay the night, I had to depart
+for that day, after I had heard him recite in the traditional chant some
+staves of an Ossianic lay, and sing to the traditional air Carolan's
+famous lyric, "The Lord of Mayo." We drank a glass of whisky from my
+flask, a cup of tea that his wife made; and as we went into the house he
+asked a favour in a whisper. It was that I should eat plenty of his good
+woman's butter. He escorted me a good way over the hill, for, said he,
+when I had come that far to see him, it was the least that he should put
+me a piece on my road, and he exhorted me to come again for "a good
+crack together." And if I deferred visiting him for another year that
+was largely because I did not like to face again this illiterate without
+acquiring a little more knowledge.
+
+What came of my second visit must be written in another paper. But here,
+let it be understood this is no exceptional case. In every three or four
+parishes along the Western seaboard and for twenty miles inland, from
+Donegal to Kerry, there is the like of James Kelly to be found. It may
+be that in another fifty years not one of these Shanachies will linger;
+education will have made a clean sweep of illiteracy. And yet again, it
+may be that by that time, not only in the Western baronies but through
+the length and breadth of Ireland, both song and story and legend will
+be living again on the lips and in the hearts of the people. _Go leigidh
+Dia sin._
+
+
+
+
+LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES
+
+II
+
+THE LIFE OF A SONG
+
+
+There was a great contention some years ago fought out in a law court
+between the British Museum and the Royal Irish Academy, for the custody
+of certain treasure trove, gold vessels and ornaments disinterred on an
+Irish beach. The treasures went back, as was only right, to Ireland,
+where is a rich storehouse of such things, for the soil has been dug
+over in search for the material relics of ancient art. Yet little heed
+has been paid to treasures of far greater worth and interest, harder to
+sell, it is true, but easier to come by--the old songs and stories which
+linger in oral tradition or in old manuscripts handed down from peasant
+to peasant. Only within the last few years did the Irish suddenly awake
+to a consciousness that the authentic symbols, or, rather, the
+indisputable proofs of the national existence so dear to them, were
+slipping out of their hands. So far had the heritage perished, so ill
+had the tradition been maintained, that when they turned to revive their
+expiring language and literature, the first question asked was, "What is
+it you would revive? Was there ever a literature in Irish or merely a
+collection of ridiculous rhodomontade? Is there a language, or does
+there survive merely a debased jargon, employed by ignorant peasants
+among themselves, and chiefly useful, like a thieves' lingo, to baffle
+the police?"
+
+These were the questions put, and not one in a thousand of Irish
+Nationalists could give an answer according to knowledge.
+
+Now, matters are changed. The books that were available in print have
+been read; the work of poets extant only in manuscript has been printed
+and widely circulated; the language is studied with zeal, and not in
+Ireland only, but wherever Irishmen are gathered. Yet nothing has so
+strongly moved me to believe that we cherish the living rather than pay
+funeral honours to the dead, as certain hours spent with a peasant who
+could neither write nor read.
+
+The life of a song--poets have said it again and again in immortal
+verse--is of all lives the most enduring. Kingdoms pass, buildings
+crumble, but the work which a man has fashioned "out of a mouthful of
+air" defies the centuries; it keeps its shape and its quivering
+substance. Strongest of all such lives are perhaps those where "the
+mouthful of air" is left by the singer mere air, and no more, unfixed on
+paper or parchment; when the song goes from mouth to mouth, altering its
+contours it may be, but unchanged in essence, though coloured by its
+immediate surroundings as a flower fits itself to each soil. Such was
+the song that I had the chance to write down, from lips to which it came
+through who knows how many generations.
+
+The story which it tells is among the finest in that great repertory of
+legend which, since Ireland began to take count of her own possessions,
+has become familiar to the world. It is the theme of a play in the last
+book published by the chief of modern Irish poets, Mr. W. B. Yeats. But
+since he tells the story in a way of his own, and since it is none too
+well known even in those parts of Ireland where its hero's name is a
+proverb (_Comh lŕidir le Cuchulain_, Strong as Cuchulain), it may be
+well to set out the legend here.
+
+Cuchulain, the Achilles of Irish epic, was famous from the day in
+boyhood when he got his name by killing, bare-handed, the smith's fierce
+watchdog that would have torn him. The ransom for the killing was laid
+on by the boy himself, and it was that he should watch Culann's house
+for a year and a day till a pup should be grown to take the place of the
+slain dog. So he came to be called Cú Chulain, Culann's Hound, and by
+that name he was known when, as a young champion, he set out for the
+Isle of Skye, where the warrior-witch Sgathach (from whom the island is
+called) taught the crowning feats of arms to all young heroes who could
+pass through the ordeals she laid upon them.
+
+There was no trial that Cuchulain could not support, and the fame of him
+drew on a combat with another Amazonian warrior, Aoifé, who, in the
+story that I heard, was Sgathach's daughter, though Lady Gregory in her
+fine book _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_ gives another version. But, at any
+rate, Cuchulain defeated Aoifé, and she gave love to her
+conqueror--whose passion for the fierce queen was not strong enough to
+keep him from Ireland. When he made ready to go, the woman warrior told
+him that a child was to be born of their embraces, and she asked what
+should be done with it. "If it be a girl, keep it," said Cuchulain,
+"but if a boy, wait till his thumb can fill this ring"--and he gave her
+the circlet--"then send him to me." So he departed, leaving wrath behind
+him.
+
+The child born was a son, and Aoifé reared him and taught him all feats
+of arms that could be taught to a mortal, except one only, and of that
+feat only Cuchulain was master: "the way," said James Kelly, prefacing
+his ballad with such an explanation as I am now giving, "there would be
+none could kill him but his own father." And when the boy had learnt all
+and was the perfect warrior, Aoifé sent him out to Ireland under a
+pledge to refuse his name to any that should ask it, well knowing how
+the wardens of the coast would stop him on the shore. It fell out as she
+purposed. The young Connlaoch defeated champion after champion till
+Cuchulain himself went down, and was recognised by his son. But the
+pledge tied Connlaoch's tongue, and only when he lay dying, slain by the
+magic throw which Aoifé had withheld from his knowledge, could he reveal
+himself to his father, the great and childless hero, whose lament for
+his lost son is written in the song that I set out to secure, on a day
+of sun and rain, last summer, when great soft clouds drove full sail
+through the moist atmosphere, their shadows sweeping over brown moor and
+green valley, while far away towards the sea, mountain peaks rose purple
+and amethystine in the distance.
+
+Twice before this I had been in the little cottage on Cark Mountain;
+first, when the chance rumour heard in a neighbouring cabin of a man
+with countless songs and stories sent me off to investigate; and for a
+second time, when I had come back with a slightly better knowledge of
+Gaelic and had taken down a few verses of the poem. These, sent to an
+Irish scholar, had sufficed to identify the ballad with one printed in
+Miss Brooke's _Reliques of Irish Poetry_, a characteristic production of
+the latter days of the eighteenth century, when Macpherson, with his
+adaptation of the Ossianic poems, and Bishop Percy, with his gathering
+of old English ballads, had set a fashion soon to culminate in Scott's
+great achievement.
+
+They proved, however, not identity only but difference; and the ballad
+as I have it in full with its nineteen quatrains, is even less like the
+longer version given by O'Halloran to Miss Brooke, than the opening
+stanzas suggested. In them the variations were mainly textual, and when
+I read out O'Halloran's version to James Kelly, his son, a keen
+listener, declared a preference for the printed text. But the old man
+was of another mind. "It's the same song," he said, "sure enough, but
+there's things changed in it, and I know rightly about them. Some one
+was giving it the way it would be easier to understand, leaving out the
+old hard words. And I did that myself once or twice the last day you
+were here, and I was vexed after, when I would be thinking about it. And
+this day you will be to take down what I say, let you understand it or
+not; just word for word, the right way it should be spoken."
+
+There you have in a glimpse the custodian of legend. The man was
+illiterate, technically, but he knew by instinct, as his ancestors had
+known before him, that he was the guardian of the life of a song; he
+recognised that it was a scripture which he had no right to mutilate or
+alter. He had to the full that respect for a work of literature which is
+the best indication of a scholar, and for him at least the line was
+unbroken from the Ireland of heroes and minstrels to the hour when he
+chanted over the poem that some bard in the remote ages had fashioned.
+
+Little wonder, too, for his own way of life was close to that of the
+Middle Ages. Below in the valley, where the Swilly River debouches into
+its sea lough, was a prosperous little town with banks and railway; but
+to reach the bleak brown moor where James Kelly's house stood, you must
+climb by one of two roads, each so rough and steep that a bicycle cannot
+be ridden down them. Here, in a little screen of scrub alders, stands
+the cottage, where three generations of the family live together. His
+own home consisted simply of two rooms with no upper story, but it was
+trim and comfortable, the dresser well filled, and the big pot over the
+turf fire gave out a prosperous steam. The son, a grown man, waited from
+his turf-cutting to help in our discussion; the wife was abroad that
+day, and one daughter was just starting for market with a web of
+homespun cloth which they had dressed in the household. The spinning
+wheel stood in the corner; but another girl was busy near the fire with
+more modern work, hemming shirts with a machine for a Derry factory, and
+the bleached linen was the only thing in the house which had not taken
+on the brown tints of peat smoke.
+
+James Kelly himself, as he sat by the fire declaiming at me, was all
+browns and greys, like the country outside his door; and his eyes were
+like brown streams running through that peaty mountain, with their
+movement and sparkle, and their dark depths. At other times easy, like
+that of all Irish peasants, his manner changed and grew rough and
+imperious when the business began. I must not interrupt with questions.
+I must write down, syllable for syllable, that the song might be got
+"the right way." It was by no means easy to carry out these directions,
+for the poem was written in an Irish not spoken to-day, as unlike as the
+Chaucerian English is to our common speech; and even to write down
+modern Irish by ear I was poorly qualified. Things were made harder,
+too, by the manner of recitation, as traditional as the words. He
+chanted, with a continuous vocalisation, and while he chanted, elbow and
+knee worked like a fiddler's or piper's marking the time. However, with
+persistence, I got the thing down, letting him first say a verse fully
+through, then writing line by line or as near as I could; then going
+back and asking questions in detail: the son coming to my rescue, when
+the old man lost patience (as he did once in every ten minutes) and
+interposing usefully in our discussions.
+
+For there were endless discussions as to the meaning of words, and
+nothing could be more curious than to see the old man's endeavour to
+give in English not merely a bare rendering, but the colour of every
+phrase. It made me realise as nothing else could have done, how fine was
+his feeling for the shade of a word, and I cannot describe his
+dissatisfaction with the poor equivalents he could find. He was happy
+enough when the debate drifted into an exposition--always addressed to
+his son--of the uses of some rare word in the Irish, the manner of
+exposition being by citation of passages from other songs, or phrases
+that might occur in talk. I have listened to many a professor doing the
+same thing in Greek and Latin, but to none who had a finer instinct for
+the business. Kelly's vexation came when he had to "put English on" a
+word for me, and the obvious equivalent was not the right one. Sometimes
+I could help; sometimes he arrived by himself at what satisfied him,
+though once at least it was droll enough. We were at the lines where
+Connlaoch, dying, says to his father: "If I could give my secret to any
+under the sun, it is to your bright body I would tell it." The trouble
+was about the phrase "bright body," for the word "cneas" means literally
+"skin," but is used (just like [Greek: chrôs] in Homer) to signify
+"person." What James wanted to convey to me was that the word was not
+the common one for "body," and at last he smote his thigh. "Carkidge,"
+he cried, "it's carkidge (carcase), 'It is to your clear carkidge I
+would tell it.'" A man with less instinct for literature would have said
+"body" at once, and never trouble more; but James knew at once too much
+and too little, and I give the instance to show how an Irishman
+unlettered in English may be deeply imbued with the true spirit of
+letters through a literature of his own.
+
+There were, however, several passages where I could get no clear account
+of the meaning, and in some I have since found by comparison with the
+text which O'Halloran provided for Miss Brooke that Kelly had got the
+words twisted. For instance, the first stanza opens simply:--
+
+    "There came to us a stout champion,
+    The hearty champion Connlaoch."
+
+But of the next two lines I could get no clearer rendering than that "he
+just came in full through these people for diversion and for fun to
+himself." Then the ballad continues at once--for its method is terse and
+its transitions abrupt throughout--to give us the words of the men who
+meet Connlaoch on his landing:--
+
+    "Where have you been, O tender gallant,
+    Riding like a noble's son?
+    Methinks by the way of your coming,
+    You are wandering or astray."
+
+And Connlaoch answers the taunt and the challenge implied:--
+
+    "My coming is over seas from the land
+    Of the High King of the World,
+    To prove my merry prowess
+    Athwart the high chiefs of Erin."
+
+(It seemed to me characteristic that the stock epithet of valour should
+be "merry" or "laughing.") The ballad added no reply (though in Miss
+Brooke's version at this point there is a dialogue of warnings), but
+went on to tell in the shortest possible words how Conall Cearnach ("the
+Victorious") rode out from Emain Macha and met the challenger:--
+
+    "Out started Conall, not weak of hand,
+    To get news of the noble's son.
+    Bitter and hard was the way of it;
+    Conall was tied by Connlaoch."
+
+    "'Bring word from us to Hound's head,'
+    Said the King in fierce sullen tones,
+    To Dundalk sunny and bright,
+    To the Hound, Dog's jaw."
+
+Then Cuchulain (thus described by versions of the nickname won when he
+broke the jaws of Culann's hound) made answer:--
+
+    "Hard for us is hearing of the captivity
+    Of the man whose plight is told;
+    And hard it is to try the venom of blades
+    With the warrior that bound Conall."
+
+But the messenger pleads:--
+
+    "Do not think but to go to the rescue
+    Of the destroying keen dangerous warrior,
+    Of the hand that had no fear for any,
+    To loose him, and he fettered."
+
+Then (as Miss Brooke in the majestic manner of the eighteenth century
+puts it):--
+
+    "Then with firm step and dauntless air,
+    Cucullin went and thus the foe addrest,
+    Let me, O valiant knight (he cried),
+            Thy courtesy request,
+    To me thy purpose and thy name confide."
+
+And so on through a sonorous description of dialogue and fight till:--
+
+    "At length Cucullin's kindling soul arose,
+    Indignant shame recruited fury lends;
+    With fatal aim his glittering lance he throws,
+    And low on earth the dying youth extends."
+
+Or, as I translate almost literally from James Kelly's version, which is
+considerably briefer than the text which Miss Brooke has so volubly
+expanded:--
+
+    "Out set the Hound of the keen, smooth blade
+    To see the work that Conall made,
+    Till he pierced with a bitter blow,
+    That hero youth his hardy foe."
+
+That is all we are told of the fighting; the ballad passes straight to a
+terse dramatic dialogue, which Cuchulain opens:--
+
+    "Champion, tell your story,
+    For I see your wounds are heavy;
+    'Twill be short ere they raise your cairn,
+    So hide your testament no longer."
+
+"That's what he said to the son," said James Kelly, finishing the verse,
+and beginning afresh,
+
+    "Let me fall on my face,
+    For methinks 'tis you are my father,
+    And for fear lest men of Eiré should see
+    Me retreating from your fierce grapple."
+
+"Then," said James, "the son spoke for to tell him the reason he
+couldn't spake at the first":--
+
+    "I took pledges to my mother
+    Not to give my story to any single man,
+    If I would give it to any under the sun,
+    It is to your bright body I would tell it."
+
+("Complimenting him, like," said James.) Then he recited the stanza
+which tells by implication how in the long duel Cuchulain was at last
+driven to use the irresistible stroke of Sgathach's teaching:--
+
+    "I lay my curse on my mother,
+    That she put me under pledge;
+    But if it were not for the feat of magic
+    I had not been got for nothing."
+
+(It is a fine phrase surely, "You had paid dear in blood before you
+mastered me.")
+
+Cuchulain answers groaning, with a wail for the lineage that is cut off:
+
+    "I lay my curse on your mother,
+    For she destroyed a multitude of young ones;
+    And because the treachery that was in her
+    Left your smooth flesh reddened."
+
+Then comes, with the boy's dying word, the revelation of the most tragic
+moment in the fight.
+
+    "Cuchulain, beloved father,
+    Is it not a wonder you did not know me
+    When I cast my spear crooked and feebly
+    Against your bush of blades."
+
+Where will you find a finer stroke of invention? The boy, tongue-tied by
+his pledge, knows his father and feels his defence failing against the
+terrible onset; he would not, if he could, be the victor, but he thinks
+of a way within the honour of his bond which may awaken knowledge of
+him; and he casts his javelin with a clumsiness not to be looked for in
+the champion "that tied Conall." It is useless, the battle madness is in
+Cuchulain, he thinks only of conquest, an end to the supple, quick
+parrying, and he throws the gaebulg, a spear of dragon's bones bristling
+with points (his "bush of blades"), with the magic cast that there is no
+meeting. And now there is nothing left to him but the lamentation,
+
+    "Och, och! Great is my madness!
+    I lifting here my young lad!
+    My son's head in my one hand,
+    His arms and his raiment on the other.
+
+    "I, the father that slew his son,
+    May I never throw spear nor noble javelin;
+    The hand that slew its son,
+    May it win torture and sharp wounding.
+
+    "The grief for my son I put from me never,
+    Till the flagstones of my side crumble,
+    It is in me, and through my heart,
+    Like a sharp blaze in the hoar hill grasses.
+
+    "If I and my heart's Connlaoch
+    Were playing our kingly feats together,
+    We could range from wave to shore
+    Over the five provinces of Erin."
+
+The penultimate stanza, with its magnificent closing image and its truly
+Ćschylean hyperbole, is not even suggested in Miss Brooke's version. It
+is, perhaps, the finest thing in the poem; but I hardly know any ballad
+finer as a piece of dramatic narrative; and the resonant verse, strongly
+rhymed (in the Gaelic assonances), and copiously stressed with
+alliteration, bears out the theme.
+
+These, I trust, are critical opinions. But if the collector would have a
+special weakness for a vase which his own spade had unearthed, I may be
+prejudiced in favour of the poem, which I got in the sweat of my brow
+from very probably the one man living who knew it in that form.
+
+Tellers of old Irish fairy tales about enchanted princes, magic cocks
+and hens, and the like, are still numerous; but it is very rare to find
+a man who keeps living the old poetry which was made, perhaps, in the
+twelfth century. Yet while any survive the tradition is still there; the
+song still lives, for I did not spend my hours without feeling that this
+old man could respond to any emotion that the song-maker put into the
+sound and the meaning and the associations of his words. There are still
+those to whom the Irish even of the twelfth century is no dead language.
+Even if it were, no doubt the songs made in it might still be strong in
+life, as are to-day those of Homer and a hundred others. But in the case
+of these smaller literatures, once the tongue itself has ceased to be
+heard, dumbness and paralysis fall upon what might else be so full of
+vitality. And a song has more than its own life, it has power to
+quicken, to breed. If any one considers that legend of the son and
+father (found in many languages, yet in none, I think, more finely
+shaped), it is easy to see how from age to age it may revive itself in
+new forms, entering into other shapes, as Helen's figure adorns not her
+own story only, but the praise of a thousand women. Let it be understood
+that this legend is only one of a cycle, and that the song which I wrote
+down was only the barest fraction of James Kelly's repertory. Indeed, he
+was vexed that I should take it as a specimen, for he himself "had more
+conceit in" the lays that tell of Finn and his companions, and I could
+have filled a volume, and maybe several volumes, from his recitations.
+
+These songs may die, the language may die, the Irish race may be
+swallowed up in England and America. But it is my belief that the strong
+intellectual life which made of Ireland a home of the arts before the
+Normans came across channel may, like many another life in nature,
+spring after centuries of torpor into vigour and fertility again. That
+is the belief and hope of many of us; but nothing has rendered me so
+confident in it as to find this work of a strong and fine art not laid
+aside and neglected, but honoured and current to-day, and, though in a
+poor man's cottage, living with as full a life as when it was chanted at
+the feasts of princes.
+
+
+
+
+IRISH EDUCATION AND IRISH CHARACTER.
+
+
+Education in Ireland has been organised by the State in accordance with
+English ideas. Had English influence been able to bring about any large
+measure of conformity between the two countries, there would have been
+little or no need for a separate paper on moral training in Irish
+schools. But what conformity there is, is purely superficial; and
+although free development has been hindered, and Irish institutions for
+teaching are less characteristic than they would have been if entirely
+left to themselves, still the moral influences which emerge wherever
+pupils and teachers are brought together reveal themselves in Ireland,
+and reveal themselves as Irish. The object of this paper, then, is to
+illustrate, so far as possible, the nature and the symptoms of these
+distinctive influences.
+
+First of all, it may be said broadly that no ordinary person in Ireland
+contemplates the possibility of teaching morality apart from religion;
+and by religion is meant emphatically this or that particular creed.
+Almost every school maintained by the State is managed locally by a
+clergyman, who appoints the teacher, and public feeling is so strong on
+the matter that in any neighbourhood even a small group of families of
+any particular denomination is always provided with a separate school of
+its own. Of late, indeed, opinion has begun to agitate for associating
+the laity with the clergy in the management of schools; but this does
+not indicate any desire to lessen the importance given to the part
+played by religion in education.
+
+Further, so far as Catholic Ireland is concerned, an immense proportion
+of the teaching both in primary and secondary schools is done by members
+of religious orders, and in these, of course, there is no conception of
+separating moral influences from religious. There is, however, no
+evidence known to me that even in the few Protestant schools which are
+partly or wholly under lay control any duties, other than those of
+ordinary school work, are inculcated except as part of a Christian's
+religious obligations. This entire state of things is due to the fact
+that positive Christian belief, and the practice of religious
+observances, are everywhere in Ireland very general, and among the
+Catholic population almost universal. It is also hardly necessary to
+point out that in many respects the standard of Irish morality is so
+high that the example of Ireland may be quoted with confidence in
+support of the view which makes moral teaching necessarily a part of
+religion.
+
+But from such broad generalities there is not much to be gathered, and I
+proceed to examine in some detail the existing institutions--beginning
+at the top with higher education.
+
+It follows from what has been said that, in the general opinion of
+Irishmen, there can be no positive moral influence where there is no
+religious teaching; and for that reason a university without a school of
+theology or arrangements for corporate worship is, to Irishmen, a
+university deficient in moral safeguards. This accounts for the fact
+that Catholic opinion was much less opposed to the Protestant
+University of Dublin than to the more modern Queen's Colleges, which,
+designed by England to provide for her wants of Ireland, excluded
+religion entirely from their purview. This provision satisfied no one,
+except to some extent the Presbyterians, who accepted Queen's College,
+Belfast, with some alacrity, though in practice demanding that its head
+should always be a staunch professor of their own persuasion. But
+Catholics as a body refused to accept either the University of Dublin
+with its Protestant atmosphere or the "godless" Queen's Colleges; and
+since Ireland is mainly a Catholic country, and the National University
+has not yet created a tradition, it is clear that not much can be
+gleaned on the subject of Irish ideas of moral training from Irish
+universities.
+
+Yet Trinity College is well worth study, for in it we have a free
+growth, typifying both in its virtues and in its defects the ruling
+Protestant class, landed and professional. Here, unquestionably, the
+chief moral influence is that of the Church, felt, as at Oxford,
+directly through the chapel services and sermons, and indirectly through
+the presence of a large body of theological students. The second of
+these influences is specially strong in Dublin, because these students
+have an organisation of their own in the University Theological Society,
+and also because the work of the Divinity School at Dublin comprises
+much that is done in England by the training colleges. I should
+therefore be inclined to put the positive influence of dogmatic religion
+higher at Dublin than at Oxford.
+
+On the other hand, the vaguer humanitarian enthusiasms which are more or
+less allied to Socialism, and with which the High Church party
+willingly allies itself, have, I think, much less hold in Trinity than
+at the English universities; though the movement which sends so many
+brilliant young Englishmen into work (temporary or permanent) in the
+East End of London has its parallel in the recently organised Social
+Service Society, which attempts something for the reclamation of Dublin
+slums. Again, in regard to more definitely political aspirations, Irish
+Protestants are somewhat unfortunately situated. Trinity as a whole has
+no sympathy with the ideals that appeal to Ireland as a nation, and it
+always seems to lack first-hand touch with the best English thought,
+whether Liberal or Tory. This isolation from the main movement of Irish
+thought and feeling on the one hand, and on the other, this enforced
+separation from the current of English life, keep the place a little
+old-fashioned; and to generate enthusiasm, ideals and feelings need a
+certain freshness. If it be held (as I should hold) that a university's
+main moral function is to produce enthusiasts rather than merely decent
+citizens, in this respect, I think, Trinity fails.
+
+In regard to the less direct influences, a good deal may be noted. The
+general trend of life in Trinity is towards frugality, just as at Oxford
+it is towards extravagance. Consequently, money is less of an advantage,
+poverty less of a drawback than at the English universities; the
+standard of living is more uniform; and in the society of which the
+university is typical, and which it influences, respect for wealth as
+wealth is noticeably rare. Again, the idea of education is more
+disciplinary than in England. Irishmen go to college, not to acquire
+culture by contact, but to learn certain definite things; and the
+university, in its anxiety to find out if the task is being learnt,
+multiplies examinations. The same idea pervades all Irish education--the
+old-fashioned demand for a positive result in knowledge; and if it leads
+to an excessive value set upon these tests, it also goes far to
+discourage idleness.
+
+In another matter Trinity College is typical of Irish ideas generally.
+Games are simply taken as games, not as a main business of life in which
+success may even have a marketable value. Everybody recognizes their
+physical use, and more than that, their use as a means of bringing men
+together. But nobody in Ireland, save here and there a stray apostle of
+English notions, talks of the moral lessons to be acquired by fielding
+out or by patient batting. Compulsory games at school are practically
+unknown; nobody plays unless he wants to; so that the duffer does not
+experience the questionable moral advantage of physical discomfort and
+frequent humiliation, and the naturally painstaking or excellent athlete
+gets no more than his fair chance of exercising his gifts. And these are
+less likely to have an undue importance in their possessor's eyes,
+because they will not of themselves lead him to a position of great
+distinction in an Irish university.
+
+Unfortunately, Trinity College is the only place in Ireland--unless
+perhaps a saving clause should be made for Queen's College,
+Belfast--which offers what is meant by a university life. The National
+University, whether in Dublin, Cork or Galway, brings young men together
+only in classes and in one or two debating societies. Yet even so, I
+question whether, in some ways, life does not beat stronger in it than
+in Trinity; whether the moral influences proper to a university, the
+enthusiasm, the contagion of generous ideas, are not here more strongly
+felt. The reason for this view must be given.
+
+Trinity has never been the University of Ireland. It is ceasing to be
+the University of Protestant Ireland, for Protestants, who can afford to
+do so, send their sons increasingly to Oxford or Cambridge, and Trinity,
+which has not known how to create a true and special function for
+itself, is becoming merely a cheap substitute for these English
+institutions. And the reason for this is a moral reason which goes to
+the root of many questions connected with Irish education. Should Irish
+schools and colleges seek to educate citizens for the Empire, or
+citizens for Ireland? During the last half century, while the
+Imperialist idea has been developing in England, Trinity has thrown all
+its moral weight into support of that idea. But the Imperialist idea in
+England is very different from the same idea as viewed in Canada or New
+Zealand or Australia; and universities in these countries address
+themselves particularly to local needs. In the section of Ireland which
+Trinity represents, local patriotism is held to conflict with Imperial
+patriotism, and one has to observe that Trinity's Imperialism is
+forwarding tendencies which are leaving her drained. Nationalists may
+respect the sincerity of convictions so pressed in defiance of a local
+interest; but a university, whose main emotional appeal is directed
+towards evoking primarily an enthusiasm for England, cannot be of much
+use to Nationalist Ireland. Catholics may (and do) respect the
+thoroughness of the religious teaching, and the strong grip which
+Protestantism keeps on the university; but a university which
+inculcates morals through a Protestant religion is not precisely
+suitable to Catholics. Yet Catholics and Nationalists alike infinitely
+prefer a university or a college or a school with strong Protestant
+beliefs, or strong Imperialist patriotism, to an institution with
+neither beliefs nor patriotism at all. The colourless and merely
+scholastic ideals of the Queen's Colleges, and the huge examining
+machinery known as the Royal University, typified in their total lack of
+moral influences all that was worst in the educational system under
+which Ireland labours.
+
+I pass to a brief examination of the boarding schools, institutions
+which have never flourished in Ireland. Nearly all Protestants and many
+Catholics, if they can afford it, send their sons to England to be
+taught. The ideals of the English Public School have reacted so strongly
+upon Irish Protestant schools that nothing need be said of these--not
+one of which has ever, within living memory, had a continuous
+prosperity. The important Catholic schools are managed by the great
+teaching orders, especially by the Jesuits, and managed at astonishingly
+low cost. They give everywhere more than value for the fees which they
+receive. No unendowed institution could compete with them; and it
+practically comes to this, that the regular clergy subsidise education
+with their own unpaid labour and even with their own funds, in order to
+maintain their influence over the faith and morals of their country.
+Whether it might be more to the advantage of Irish parents to pay more
+and get something different, is another question; but those of us who
+least like the exclusive delegation of these important functions to the
+priesthood, cannot but admire the thoroughness and consistency with
+which the Catholic priesthood's idea is carried out. It would be hard to
+overstate the moral effect of that vast organised system of
+self-sacrifice and self-suppression.
+
+Three or four points may be noted in relation to these schools. One is,
+that in all classrooms and playgrounds, a master is always present.
+Comparing this with the system in vogue at many English schools, under
+which a boy out of school hours is always forced to live in public by
+rules which compel him either to be playing some game or looking on
+while others play, I prefer the system of frank supervision, as leaving
+more individual freedom and choice of pursuits, and as making serious
+bullying impossible. Generally, the idea that it is good for a boy to be
+knocked about without stint is foreign to Irish ideas. A pleasant and
+characteristic feature of Jesuit schools is the habit of telling off
+some boy to act as companion and cicerone to a newcomer for his first
+week or fortnight; and the ridiculous English fashion which prescribes
+that the smallest fag should be described as a "man" is unknown.
+Christian names, not surnames, are used generally. The unpopularity of
+boarding schools in Ireland is due to the great value set upon home
+life; and an Irish boarding school is far less distinct from home life
+than an English one.
+
+English eyes would be surprised and a good deal shocked by the presence
+of a billiard table in every playroom; yet it may fairly be argued that
+it is wise to limit the number of things that have the fascination of
+the forbidden. A more serious criticism would address itself to the
+permitted slovenliness. Untidiness amounts to a national vice in
+Ireland, and, though one may overstate its gravity, the secondary
+schools could and should do much more to remedy this national defect
+than they are at present doing. At one first-class Irish
+establishment--admirably equipped with buildings, playground, and all
+other appliances--boots used to go unblacked from one end of the month
+to the other. The boys who come here come largely from the well-to-do
+farming class, in whose homes, in many ways so pleasant and worthy of
+respect, there is often a lamentable lack of that charm which comes of
+notable housewifery. The young men who return from this school will be
+less apt than they should be to value good housewifery in their wives
+and mothers.
+
+But of all sinners in this regard the State is the chief offender. Under
+the Code of the National Board of Education a national schoolmaster or
+mistress is bound to teach cleanliness and decency by precept and
+example. He or she is paid an average wage (without allowances) of
+thirty shillings or one pound a week according to sex; and out of that
+an appearance befitting superior station has to be maintained--for in
+Ireland the schoolmaster has always a position of some dignity. For the
+school the State provides four bare walls, a roof, not always
+weatherproof, and a few desks. Firing is not provided. Decoration is
+subject to inspection, and any picture which can be held to have a
+religious or remotely political bearing is a gross offence against the
+Code. It follows, in practice, that bare walls are kept bare, though not
+clean; and let it be remembered that Catholicism, if left to itself, in
+education always trusts greatly to the appeal to the eye. In every
+Catholic school uncontrolled by the State the emblems of religion are
+everywhere present. National schools under State control, even in places
+where there is not a Protestant child within twenty miles, are
+rigorously forbidden the use of any such embellishment. On the other
+hand, Protestant schools which would gladly, and, as I think, most
+laudably, furnish themselves with pictures recalling such memories as
+the shutting of the Derry gates, come under the same tyranny of
+compromise. Taste and culture are the expression of an individuality,
+and individuality is forbidden to Irish teachers in State employ. The
+State puts a schoolmaster into a schoolhouse, without adequate payment
+for himself, without adequate provision either for building or the
+upkeep of building; it bids him to keep it clean, but pays no servant to
+wash or sweep; and, while enjoining the absence of dirt, it checks and
+hampers that desire to decorate, which is the positive side of order and
+taste. The result is, broadly, slatternly schools.
+
+There could hardly be a better moral influence in Ireland than
+tastefully and brightly decorated schools, cleanly kept. But to secure
+this the State must provide money, and must give individual freedom.
+Instead of that, it adapts its institution to the lowest standard of
+living; and the raggedest child out of the dirtiest cottage will
+probably be in full keeping with his environment when he takes his place
+in class.
+
+The same tyranny of compromise sterilises the whole teaching on the
+moral side. Nothing must be taught anywhere which could offend any
+susceptibility--except in the hour licensed for the teaching of
+denominational religion. There must be no appeal to Irish patriotism,
+whether it be of Protestant or Catholic. Irish history may not be taught
+as a subject, and, until lately, anything bearing on it, however
+remotely, was tabooed. The poem _Breathes there a man with soul so dead_
+was struck out of a lesson book, lest it should encourage sedition.
+To-day certain accepted books on Irish history may be used as readers;
+the Irish language may be taught, and is taught; and gradually with
+these changes new moral influences are coming in. Irish children are
+being encouraged to remember their nationality. Yet, meanwhile, the
+teacher, who is to instruct them in the duties of a good citizen, is
+debarred from taking any part in local politics, from serving on any
+local council. He is forbidden, in fact, to be himself a good citizen;
+forbidden to be anything more than the colourless instrument of a system
+of compromise and countercheck. Nothing is more certain than this, that
+to get a good teacher you need a man's whole personality; you must
+enlist all his beliefs and his feelings in the exercise of that moral
+function of education which can never be fulfilled by a mere machine for
+imparting the rudiments. Man everywhere, but especially in Ireland, is,
+as Aristotle said, a political animal. The State in Ireland, when
+organising education, tries as far as possible to eliminate the man and
+produce the pedagogue.
+
+Take, for contrast with all this, the purely native institution, now
+unhappily extinct, of the old "classical academies" kept in the country
+parts of Munster by private laymen. In the eighteenth century, and on
+into the nineteenth, these men kept alive the tradition of Irish popular
+poetry, sometimes with a real gift. For good or for bad they were
+persons of character and of talent, and the last of them is alive,
+though he keeps school no longer. He taught boys who had learnt the
+rudiments at the ordinary national school, and who wished to carry on
+their studies with a view either to the priesthood or to medicine. He
+was paid only by the fees of his scholars, who were either the sons of
+farmers about him, or of men living at a distance, who sent their
+children to be part of the family in some farm where they had kinship or
+acquaintance. Thus existence for these scholars was divided between the
+home life of a farm and the hours of school. There was, however, a small
+element of what in Ireland were called "poor scholars"--boys from the
+less prosperous North and West, who came (sometimes walking the whole
+journey) to get learning gratis. To them teaching was never refused, and
+their board was provided by the farmers, who "would be snatching them
+from one and other," since they assisted the other children in preparing
+tasks.
+
+Now, in the school which my friend has described to me, there was no
+formal teaching of anything but the prescribed subjects. But literature
+would be lying about--Haverty's _History of Ireland_, and the
+Nationalist papers of the day--and the teacher was there always ready to
+expound and answer questions. Himself a fighting politician (a member of
+the Fenian organisation, whose name is still sacred throughout Ireland),
+he was careful never to draw in or compromise his pupils; but to teach
+them the story of their country and discuss it with them was part of his
+natural occupation. He taught Irish also, the tongue readiest to him,
+for he held that Irishmen should know their own language; but the
+essential business of his school was teaching the simple old-fashioned
+curriculum, Latin, mathematics, and some Greek. Yet because he was a man
+who loved and valued knowledge for its own sake, and loved and valued
+literature, it is probable that he gave a more real training to the mind
+than is achieved by the most modern system of hand and eye culture and
+the rest of it. He taught neither religion nor morals, but his teaching
+assumed throughout, what his example showed, that a man should be true
+and thorough in what he professed to believe, and should be ready at all
+times to make sacrifices for principle. Such a school had the only moral
+influence which in Ireland has ever counted for much--the influence of a
+strong personality, acting in alliance with the influences of a fully
+realised religion and of an ordered family life.
+
+I sketch a more concrete picture that always rises in my mind with a ray
+of hope, when I think of education in Ireland. Out of doors, winter
+twilight falling on a wild landscape within hearing of the Atlantic
+surf; the man of the house coming out to talk to me, a handsome Irishman
+of the old school, frieze-clad, with the traditional side whiskers, the
+humorous eye and mouth. We talked for a while in the cold, then "_Gabh i
+leith isteach_," he said, "for I hear you have the Irish." As I paused
+in the door to phrase the Gaelic salutation, more devout and courteous
+than would come to my lips in any other tongue, I was astonished at the
+company gathered in the long low room. Chairs were set by the wide
+hearth of course, and from one of them the woman of the house rose to
+greet me; a settle ran along the side wall, and its length was filled
+with men and women blotted against the dusk background. But the centre
+of the picture was a narrow deal table set in the middle of the room,
+with candles on it, and benches on each side, and on the benches fully
+ten children busy with books and copies. "Are these your burden?" I
+asked in the quaint Irish phrase. "A share of them," the man answered;
+and then I understood that some belonged to other neighbours, and that
+it was a mutual arrangement for friendliness and help. None of the
+children budged; there they were, drilled and disciplined at their work,
+in the middle of the room, while their elders sat and chatted quietly. I
+have never seen elsewhere anything which so filled my conception of what
+a home should be, as that farmhouse in Corcabascinn--so full of order
+and good governance, yet so free of constraint, so full of welcome, yet
+so lacking in expense or display. For, understand, we who were strangers
+were brought (much against my will) into the state-room or parlour
+beyond the party wall, and drink was pressed upon us hospitably. But the
+neighbours who had come there (and came daily, I fancy) came neither to
+eat nor drink (unless maybe tea might be brewing) but simply to sit and
+smoke and talk, and watch that their children got their lessons
+properly. And at the end, perhaps before they parted, perhaps when the
+family was alone, the rosary would be said by the turf fire, that made,
+winter or summer, the centre of all that pleasant existence.
+
+It is a pity to think of how poorly the National school, to which those
+children would go with their tasks in the morning, seconds the help
+which this home life gives it. Easily could the school--which takes
+whatever real light it has from the home, just as it depends for warmth
+on the few turf which scholars bring daily along with their
+books--reflect sound and fruitful ideas on to the home through the
+children. It could teach the children and the parents, not only the
+political, but the economic history of their own country; it could teach
+them what has been done in Ireland, what has succeeded, what has failed,
+and why; it could teach them, who are already proud of being Irish, to
+have new reasons for their pride; it could teach them, who are already
+willing to do their best for Ireland, into what channels the driving
+force of that willingness may be poured.
+
+Outside of definite religion, the only fruitful source of educational
+ideas connected with the moral order that I see in Ireland is the Gaelic
+League. This organisation, founded to save from extinction, and to
+revive into new prosperity the national language of Ireland, based
+itself entirely upon a moral appeal. It appealed to Irishmen as they
+were proud of their race, to save the most distinctive symbol of their
+nationality; and the appeal met with an extraordinary promptness of
+response. But to stimulate and promote the movement, it was found
+necessary to widen the propaganda. Irishmen were urged to learn Irish,
+and to speak Irish because of pride in their country; the same
+organisation soon began to teach that an Irishman who set an example of
+drunkenness, or gave an occasion of it, not only sinned against himself,
+but against his country. Vulgar and indecent literature was denounced as
+un-Irish; Irish dances were advocated, not only for their admirable
+grace and their historic interest, but also because it was held that
+dances like the waltz, departed from the austere standard of Irish
+morality. Irish men and women were taught to buy goods of Irish
+manufacture by the people who taught them to learn the language, on the
+ground that if the Irish nation continued to ebb away out of Ireland,
+nationality and language must perish together.
+
+Thus through the medium of a propaganda which at first sight would seem
+merely literary and archćological, many practical issues of life were
+related to a purely educational purpose. There is no doubt that the
+Gaelic League, now a widespread and solidly established organisation,
+spending on the whole, perhaps, Ł30,000 or Ł40,000 a year on its
+enterprise, has done as much to promote temperance, and to further Irish
+industries, as it has accomplished in its peculiar task of reviving the
+old tongue. Primarily a teaching institution--for each of the League's
+eight hundred branches exists to hold classes for Irish study--it has
+linked with the linguistic teaching a moral idea. The reaction has been
+mutual, for there is more intelligent thought on the methods of
+linguistic teaching in the Gaelic League than one would easily find in
+all the schools and universities of Ireland. The appeal to pride of race
+has quickened intelligence no less than enthusiasm.
+
+It is a very remarkable fact, that the great teaching order of the
+Christian Brothers has taken up the teaching of Irish and generally the
+Gaelic League's whole propaganda more thoroughly than any other
+organisation in Ireland; very remarkable, for their practical success is
+so conspicuous that Protestant clergymen have repeatedly from the pulpit
+appealed for extra support to Protestant schools whose pupils, as one
+preacher said in my hearing, were being ousted in all competition for
+employment by the lads from the Christian Brothers' schools. Whatever
+the post was, the preacher said, this body of lay Catholics seemed
+always to have a candidate specially prepared for it. One of the
+greatest institutions in charge of that order is the industrial school
+at Artane, near Dublin, where eight hundred boys are being prepared for
+different trades. Every single one of those boys is now being taught
+Irish; that is to say, a linguistic training with a special appeal to
+the learner's patriotism has been superimposed on the ordinary
+rudiments. It is a great experiment made by enthusiasts who are also
+teachers with an intensely practical bent.
+
+It is too early even to forecast the effect which is likely to be
+produced upon Irish education generally by the new university colleges
+set up under Mr. Birrell's Act. Yet this may be said. Irish education
+needs reform from the top downwards, not from the bottom upwards. It has
+lacked idealism, and these universities in which Ireland, whether of the
+north or the south, will be free to express its own character, can and
+should set up ideals which will govern every school in the country.
+Trinity College has been free to follow its own bent, and its eyes
+to-day are, in scriptural phrase, "on the ends of the earth." Primary
+education, secondary studies, as governed by the machinery controlled
+through the Board of Intermediate Education, and university teaching as
+directed and rewarded through the Royal University, have all in the last
+resort been inspired by Englishmen who thought it very desirable that
+Irish boys and girls should learn to read and write and cipher, and that
+young men and young women should equip themselves for clerkships in the
+civil service, but who never for one instant realised that the end of
+education is divergence not conformity--to elicit, whether from the race
+or from the individual, a full and characteristic development. In twenty
+years perhaps a paper of interest may be written to show the positive
+results of education upon Irish character. At present the most
+noticeable facts are negative, and may be summed up by affirming a total
+lack of correspondence between the system employed and the needs and
+qualities of the Irish people.
+
+1907.
+
+
+
+
+THE IRISH GENTRY.
+
+
+At the height on the struggle over the Home Rule Bill, there was
+published a book interesting as the biography of a remarkable
+individual, but no less interesting as depicting the crucial moment in
+the history of an aristocracy. Colonel Moore wisely entitles the life of
+his father simply _An Irish Gentleman_. Versatile, eloquent,
+quick-tempered and lovable, excessive in generosity, excessive in
+courage and self-confidence, with the racecourse for his ruling passion
+and horsemanship for his supreme achievement, George Henry Moore was the
+paragon of his class. He displayed in the highest degree those qualities
+on which the Irish gentry prided themselves and which they most admired:
+he shared the prestige and power of Irish landlords when prestige and
+power were at their height; and he confronted the decisive hour when he,
+and men like him, had to choose between the interest of their country
+and the interest of their class. There he separated himself from his
+fellows; he parted from all to whom he was bound by ties of immediate
+advantage, of pleasure, of association, of affection, and he threw in
+his lot with Ireland. He saw first the moral bankruptcy of his own
+class, then their widespread financial ruin; and though he helped to
+break their political power, and in so doing earned the general love of
+his countrymen, yet the troubles which beset the landlord class did not
+spare him, and he died, broken-hearted, forty-three years ago, at the
+beginning of a struggle which is not ended yet. It is well worth while
+to consider the circumstances of that stormy career.
+
+First a brilliant schoolboy, then an idle law student, George Henry
+Moore was driven to travel by the complications of a passionate love
+affair, and he travelled adventurously, being a pioneer of exploration
+in the Caucasus and Syria. Sketches reproduced in the book show that he
+could draw no less well than he wrote. Returning to Ireland at the age
+of twenty-seven, he devoted himself entirely to hunting and racing, and
+few men were better known on the turf, nor were there even in the West
+of Ireland more desperate riders than his brother and himself. George
+Henry was carried off the field at Cahir in 1843 to all appearance dead;
+he was alive enough to hear discussion as to his burial. Augustus, less
+lucky, died of a fall he took riding Mickey Free in the Grand National
+two years later. The brothers were closely bound to each other in
+affection, and this was a heavy blow to the survivor; but George Moore
+continued to race, and in 1846 made the coup of his life, winning
+Ł10,000 on "Coranna" for the Chester Cup. He sent Ł1,000 of it home for
+distribution among his tenants, and there was soon sore need of the
+money, for that year saw the second and disastrous failure of the potato
+crop. The Irish Famine made the turning-point in Moore's history, as in
+that of his class. The catastrophe which brought him into public life
+and into the service of his country demonstrated, cruelly enough--though
+this was the least of its cruelties--the futility of the Irish gentry as
+a whole.
+
+By the shock of his brother's death in 1845 Moore's mind had been turned
+to serious thoughts. Matter was not lacking. The report of the Devon
+Commission upon Irish land, joined to the first failure of the potato
+crop--with its accompaniment of distress and widespread agrarian
+crime--gave any Irish landlord food for reflection, and in March, 1846,
+when a vacancy occurred in the representation of Mayo, Moore came
+forward as a Whig candidate. The whole landlord interest was at his
+back, but a Repealer opposed him, and O'Connell's influence carried the
+day. There were fierce encounters, the landlords marching their tenants
+to the poll under guards of soldiers, the popular side falling upon
+these escorts and sometimes carrying off the voters--or enabling them to
+escape. One of Moore's friends, Mr. Browne, afterwards Lord Oranmore,
+wrote: "I now see we owe our lives to the priests, as they can excite
+the whole people against us whenever they like. Whatever may be the
+cause, Ireland needs reconquering."
+
+That was a typical expression of the gentry's view. Plainly Ireland was
+in rebellion when landlords could no longer carry their tenants to the
+polls to vote as the landlord directed. Moore however differed from the
+generality of Irish landlords in one important respect. He was not
+divided by religion from the people over whom he ruled, and he can never
+have had Mr. Browne's feeling of aloofness from Ireland as a country
+which might need reconquering to re-establish the ascendancy of the
+"English garrison"; nor was it natural to him to distrust the priests as
+leaders of a separate and subject race.
+
+In the autumn of 1846, when the threat of famine had become a
+certainty, Moore came home to Mayo, where there was grim business to be
+done. His tenants, on an estate running up into the wild Partry
+mountains, numbered five thousand souls. For their benefit he utilised
+far more of his winnings on "Coranna" than the tithe which he had
+originally ear-marked; and not one of all these his dependants died of
+want in that outlandish region, though in places far less remote death
+was ravenous. He was chairman of the Relief Board for the whole county,
+and slaved at his task--not harder than other landlords in other parts
+of Ireland. But his methods were more drastic, his view of the situation
+clearer. Folk must have rubbed their eyes and perhaps stopped to think
+twice when the owner of "Wolfdog," of "Anonymous," and a score of other
+famous horses, wrote, in answer to a request for his annual subscription
+to the local races, that he thought the county of Mayo "as little fit to
+be the scene of such festivities as he to contribute to their
+celebration."
+
+But Moore did not content himself with mere administration of relief. He
+saw that the English Government was apathetic and incompetent to face so
+terrible an affliction, and he took in hand to create within his own
+class an organised force of Irish opinion to bind together the ruling
+Irishmen for the good of Ireland. In company with his friend and
+kinsman, Lord Sligo, he "travelled through twenty-seven counties and
+personally conferred with most of the leading men in Ireland on the
+urgent necessity of a united effort to save the sinking people." The
+result was that between sixty and seventy members of Parliament and some
+forty peers pledged themselves to endeavour to secure united action
+upon measures regarding Ireland in the new session. On the 14th of
+January, 1847, the Irish landlord class held such a muster as had not
+been seen since the Union. "Nearly twenty peers, more than thirty
+members of Parliament, and at least six hundred gentlemen of name and
+station took part in it. The meeting called on Government to prohibit
+export of food stuffs and to sacrifice any sum that might be required to
+save the lives of the people." It passed thirty resolutions without
+dissension; and then some one asked what was to be done if the
+Government refused to adopt any of their suggestions. Would Irish
+members then unite to vote against the Government? To this, Irish
+members refused to pledge themselves, and Moore, as he said afterwards,
+"saw at a glance that the confederacy had broken down."
+
+That was the end of the revolt of the Irish gentry. It was really the
+decisive moment of their failure; disorganised and futile, they went
+down by scores in the ruin of the Encumbered Estates Court, while their
+tenants were marking with their bones a road across the Atlantic. As for
+the landlords who were popular leaders, within a few months after that
+great assembly, Daniel O'Connell, who had proposed the first resolution,
+died in Rome, heart-broken. A few months more and Smith O'Brien, the
+mover of another resolution, headed a rebellion in sheer despair.
+
+Smith O'Brien had twenty years of parliamentary life behind him when he
+was driven to the wild protest of insurrection. Twenty years of the same
+experience were to bring Moore to a very similar attitude; but in 1847
+Moore was hopeful of building up in Parliament the nucleus of an
+Independent Irish Party. When the dissolution came, in 1847, he stood
+for a second time, but as an Independent, and his work in the famine
+times carried at least its recognition. Every single elector who went to
+the poll gave one of his two votes to the Independent. He went to
+Westminster and denounced with equal energy the agrarian murders, which
+were then rife in Ireland, and those organs of publicity in England
+which sought to magnify these outrages into an indictment against the
+Irish nation. The ferment of indignation against English methods had not
+yet died out in the hearts of Irish landlords. Lord Sligo, writing to
+Moore concerning the controversy which followed, used these words: "I
+believe that _The Times_ did much to cause the feeling which resulted in
+landlord and parson shooting; it will end by turning us all into
+Repealers." If only it had! But Moore got no help from the landlord
+class, and the well-to-do Catholic professional men with whom he was
+principally allied proved themselves unable to resist the temptations of
+office and of personal interest. In the days of Sadleir and Keogh he
+fought a desperate fight against Whig place-seekers; his reward was to
+be finally unseated (in 1857) on an election petition, the charge being
+that spiritual intimidation had been exercised on his behalf by the
+priests. As Colonel Moore observes, if a landlord threatened his tenants
+with disfavour, which meant eviction, that was "only a legitimate
+exercise of their rights of property"; but if a priest told his flock
+that a man would imperil his soul by selling his vote or prostituting it
+to the use of a despot, the candidate whom that priest supported would
+lose his seat and be disqualified for re-election.
+
+From this time onward George Henry Moore found himself heading the same
+way as Smith O'Brien had gone. In 1861 he told the Irish people that if
+they desired freedom they must take a lesson from Italy; they must
+"become dangerous"; and he advocated the formation of a new Irish
+volunteer force to emulate that of 1782. Nothing came of this; but after
+the American war a new movement grew up, not this time among the
+landlords or the professional men, nor countenanced by the priests, but
+nursed in the fierce heart of the people. Ireland had become dangerous.
+Colonel Moore recognises rightly the difference between the Fenian
+organisation and the Young Ireland movement which had preceded it. Both
+were idealistic, but the idealism of 1848 was "the inspiration of a few
+literary gentlemen, poets, and writers." Smith O'Brien, its titular
+head, was influenced profoundly by the aristocratic conception of his
+rightful place as representing the Kings of Thomond. Fenianism was
+democratic; it was officered largely by men who had themselves fought in
+the most stubborn of modern wars and who had seen what Irish regiments
+could do in the citizen levies of Federals and Confederates. It was
+spontaneous, and it was strong; the measure of its strength is given not
+by the few flickering outbreaks easily suppressed, but by the terror
+which it inspired, and by the change which it wrought in the spirit of
+the people. Moore when he took the step, extraordinary for a man in his
+position, of enrolling himself in that sworn and secret conspiracy can
+hardly have failed to foresee the collapse of Fenianism as a fighting
+force; but he recognised that (in his son's words) "the old complacent
+toleration of schemers and dishonest politicians had vanished and a
+sturdy independence had taken its place."
+
+With the advent of that spirit the power of the Irish landlords was
+doomed. They had made their choice; when they might have made common
+cause with the whole people of Ireland they had refused to rise beyond
+their immediate personal advantage and the interests of their class.
+Moore, who was of themselves, who shared all their pleasures, who loved
+them, was forced to take a hand in their overthrow. From 1858 onward he
+had been almost entirely out of politics, living the life of a popular
+country gentleman, racing and hunting more successfully than ever; his
+most famous horse, "Croagh Patrick," ran in the 'sixties. But in 1868 he
+flung all this aside, sold his horses, and undertook to fight the
+alliance of Whig and Tory which had dominated County Mayo in the
+landlord interest for ten years.
+
+     I shall have the question settled (he said) whether one lord shall
+     drive a hundred human souls to the hustings, another fifty, another
+     a score; whether this or that squire shall call twenty, or ten, or
+     five as good men as himself "his voters" and send them up with his
+     brand on their backs to vote for an omadhaun at his bidding.
+
+He did settle it. Mayo beat the landlords then, and Mayo became the
+cradle of popular movements ever after. This most typical of Irish
+land-owning gentlemen had been forced to sever himself from his class
+and even to injure his class, and it was not by advocacy of
+self-government that he estranged so close a friend as Lord Sligo.
+Fintan Lalor's policy, rejected by the Young Irelanders in 1846, was
+beginning to take hold in 1868; the movement for self-government was
+becoming linked on to the driving force of land-hunger. In the eyes of
+Lord Sligo and all his class Tenant Right meant Landlord Wrong, and
+Moore himself was not exempt from that feeling. He suffered indeed, for
+rents that he had reduced to a figure fixed by the tenants' own
+arbitrators were withheld from him. Yet he knew clearly that it was
+necessary for the country, and not more necessary than just, to secure
+the tenants in their holdings. No one disputes now that he was right.
+But the last thing he desired was to abolish the landlords. If they did
+not like the leadership of the priests "they have," he said, "a remedy
+left; let them make themselves more popular than the priests. If the
+landlords will make common cause with the people, the people will make
+common cause with them." There was never a truer word spoken, but it
+fell on closed ears.
+
+Moore himself broke the landlords' power at the polls; their infinitely
+greater power, proceeding from control of the land, was broken by
+another Mayo man, Michael Davitt, the evicted peasant from Straide,
+close by Moore Hall. That fight was bound to come when Moore's warning
+and the warning of men like him was set at nought. What a change it has
+made! and what has been lost to Ireland!
+
+Moore died in 1870. His last year of life saw a hope that Presbyterian
+farmers of the North, interested in Tenant Right, who had been
+temporarily allied to Catholics in the struggle for Disestablishment,
+might unite solidly with the Nationalists. Even the Protestant gentry
+afforded numerous supporters to Butt's Home Rule policy at its outset.
+But of this nothing serious came. The Land Act of 1870 was ineffective,
+and it seemed that, in spite of Fenianism, all would go on as before.
+Throughout the 'seventies the landlord class was in undisturbed
+supremacy. Country gentlemen still talked in good set phrase about "the
+robbery of the Church"; in actual fact they were very complacently and
+competently helping to administer its new constitution. Agriculture was
+prosperous and rents went high, though the harsh and overbearing
+landlord was condemned by his fellows. This, however, was poor
+consolation to the tenants. In the county where I was brought up, one
+landlord was a name of terror, and there was no redress from his
+tyranny, until at last the peasantry found it for themselves. The grim
+old man died fighting hard before his brains were dashed out on the
+roadside, and two innocent people were killed along with him; but no
+sane person could fail to perceive that, within five years of his taking
+off, the whole district was improved out of knowledge. The moral to be
+drawn was only too obvious; yet none of the landlords drew it; the
+established interest of a class is too strong a thing for that class to
+shake themselves out of its influence.
+
+The men of that generation--how well I remember them! most vividly
+perhaps as they used to come in to church on Sunday morning, when the
+ladies of their families addressed themselves to devotions kneeling,
+while the men said their prayers standing, peering mysteriously into
+their tall hats--a strange ritual, of which traces may be observed at
+the House of Commons, but nowhere else, I fancy, on earth. On week days
+they lived an orderly, dignified existence in their big old-fashioned
+houses, leaving home little, though the more cultivated among them had
+travelled in their youth and knew thoroughly some foreign country. In
+their own orbit they had power, leisure, and deference, all of which set
+a stamp upon them; individuality had great scope to develop, and an able
+man among them was a man made for government. One such stands out in my
+memory. Stormy tales were told of his youth, but from himself no one
+heard a whisper of these far-off exploits; small, exquisitely neat,
+finely made and finely featured, he was courteous and gentle-spoken with
+all; but he was of those quiet creatures who breed fear. I cannot
+imagine the situation of power of responsibility from which he would
+have shrunk, or to which he would have been unequal; neither can I
+imagine him anxious in the pursuit of office. That was Parnell's type.
+Parnell's strength appears to have lain precisely in that
+self-confidence which was a law to itself and which no prestige of fame
+or authority could shake or overawe. The men who might have been
+Ireland's leaders were men extraordinarily suited for the conduct of
+affairs, but as a class they had been thrown out of their natural
+relation. Castlereagh, who in his cold efficiency had much in common
+with Parnell, accomplished a desperate deed when he made the Union
+through them. He committed their honour to justify for all time that
+transaction. If those who condemned the Union were not traitors, then
+the class from whom it was bought with cash and titles stood convicted
+of infamy; and since the heart of Ireland loathed and detested
+Castlereagh's work, the whole body of the Irish gentry found themselves
+inevitably estranged from the heart of Ireland. On one side was the
+interest of a class--and not merely the material interest but the
+interest of its honour, which sought a justification in the name of
+loyalty; on the other was the interest of Ireland; and the landlord who
+chose the side of Ireland severed himself necessarily, as Moore had to
+do, from his own friends and kin.
+
+For years now there has been moving through many minds in Ireland the
+question whether this state of things must permanently endure. Is that
+estrangement inevitable? I at least think otherwise. Throughout the last
+two decades of the nineteenth century landlord and tenant were opposed
+in a struggle for definite material interests; it was a fight not only
+for free conditions of tenure but for the reduction of rent, if not for
+its total abolition. A way of peace was found in State-aided land
+purchase, and in a reconstitution of the whole agricultural order. The
+landlords, where they have been bought out, have not even the duty of
+rent collecting. How will this affect their traditional attitude, which
+calls itself loyalty to the English connexion, but which I interpret
+rather as a traditional justification of the Union and of the hereditary
+landlord policy? If self-government is established without dissolution
+of the Union, is it not reasonable to suppose that there will be a
+change in men's dispositions?
+
+The question involved is really more serious, though of far less
+political importance, than that of Ulster. Whatever happens, the
+industrial community of Belfast and its district is not going to run
+away. That element will not be lost to Ireland; it is too strong, too
+well able to assert itself; and it is anchored by its interest. The
+ex-landlords, now that their occupation is gone, are bound to Ireland
+only by habit and attachment. At present they fulfil no essential
+function; and it will be open undoubtedly for the gentry once more to
+make an error mischievous to Ireland and disastrous to themselves. They
+may take up the line of unwilling submission, of refusal to co-operate,
+of cold-shouldering and crying down the new Parliament and the new
+Ministry. Social pressure may be exercised to keep men from seeking
+election, and so to perpetuate the existing severance between the
+leisured and wealthier classes and the main body of the nation. There
+will be strong tendencies in this direction. But on the other hand I
+think that among the men who have grown up under the new order there is
+an increasing willingness to accept the change. One friend of mine--no
+politician, and, like all non-politicians, a Unionist--said to me lately
+that he would be rather disappointed if Home Rule did not become law--he
+was "curious about it"; and he added, "I think a great many like me have
+the same feeling." Others probably have a more positive outlook, and
+desire to take an active part in the public life of their country; and
+there will be a strong desire among Irish Nationalists to bring in at
+the outset those who wish to come in. On the other hand, no less
+certainly, there will be the feeling that is natural towards those who
+wish to reap where they have not sown; and the gentry will need to make
+allowance for this. If they set out with the notion, as some did when
+Local Government was established, that places are theirs by right when
+they condescend to take them--that they are entitled to election because
+they have more money, more education, because, if you will, they are, in
+the eye of pure reason, better qualified--nothing but trouble can come
+of such a disposition. Ireland, which in George Henry Moore's time was
+the most aristocratically governed part of the British Isles, is now by
+far more democratic, at all events, than England: the poor man is on a
+level with the rich, and means to stay there. Those who want to go into
+Irish politics, under Home Rule as now, must take their chances in the
+ruck; but if they do, they will find a people ready and even eager to
+recognise their qualities, and to allot perhaps more consideration than
+is due to their social position.
+
+With all their practical democracy, the Irish have a great tenderness
+for "the old stock." In the cases (and there are many hundreds of them)
+where a landlord or professional man or Protestant clergyman has been
+for long years a real friend and support and counsellor to his poorer
+neighbours, as Irish in voice and looks and gesture as they, sharing
+their tastes and their aversions, their sport and their sorrow, yet
+divided and cut off from them by a kind of political religion, I believe
+from my heart that there will be on both sides a willingness to
+celebrate the end of that old discord in some happy compact. But on both
+sides there must be generosity and a sympathy with natural hesitations
+and reluctances. Whatever comes or goes, the old domination of the
+gentry has disappeared; yet, whatever comes or goes, men of that class
+may find a sphere of usefulness and even of power in Ireland. But this
+will be infinitely easier to achieve when the great subject of
+contention is removed, and when the ex-landlord can seek election, and
+the ex-tenant can support him, without a sense on either side of turning
+against the traditional loyalties of a class.
+
+1913.
+
+
+
+
+YESTERDAY IN IRELAND.
+
+
+"Oh, maybe it was yesterday, or forty years ago," says the verse of an
+Irish song. That is the kind of indeterminate "yesterday" which is
+described in _Irish Memories_ by two friends who have made some memories
+of Ireland imperishable. "The Ireland that Martin and I knew when we
+were children," writes Miss Somerville, "is fast leaving us; every day
+some landmark is wiped out." No one knows better than she that while in
+many parts of Ireland you must go back very close on forty years to
+reach any likeness of that old way of life, yet in other parts yesterday
+and forty years ago are very much the same. Still, she would reply, and
+I must admit, that one profound modification has affected even the most
+unchanging places, altering the whole position of the class in which she
+was born and bred. In a sense, all her memories of Ireland concern
+themselves with this change, depicting either what formerly was, and the
+process of its passing, or what yet remains and seems likely to vanish
+too. Her presentment of yesterday is well worth study, for its outlook
+is typical of the most generous and shrewdest minds among the Irish
+gentry. I use here an old-fashioned word, somewhat decried, but it is
+the only one that expresses my meaning.
+
+But readers will know that this is not only a book of memories; it is,
+if not a memoir, at least the memorial of a singularly brilliant Irish
+woman. Miss Somerville had planned to write her recollections, as she
+had written so much else, in collaboration with her cousin and comrade,
+"Martin Ross"--Miss Violet Martin, of Ross, in County Galway. It did not
+so fall out; and though in this volume one is aware that the narrator is
+often (by a sort of sub-conscious habit) speaking out of two minds, from
+a dual complex of associations, and though considerable fragments of
+Martin Ross's own writing give a justification to the joint signature,
+yet one of the two comrades is joint author now only in so far as she is
+part of all the memories, and a surviving influence little likely to
+pass away. But her stock, so to say, in the partnership remains; Galway,
+no less than Cork, is the field over which these memories travel. In the
+main, the book is concerned with recalling the joint kindred of the two
+friends and cousins, and reconstituting the surroundings and the
+atmosphere of both families. Families, however, are conceived and
+depicted in their most extended relations; figures are evoked of chief,
+vassal, page and groom, tenant and master; and with them go their
+"opposite numbers" (to borrow an army term) from chieftainess to cook.
+Chieftainesses are there unmistakably. One ex-beauty had retired from
+the Court of the Regent to Castle Townshend (Miss Somerville's personal
+background), and there lived long, "noted for her charm of manner, her
+culture and her sense of humour."
+
+     Near the end of her long life she went to the funeral of a
+     relative, leaning decorously upon the arm of a kinsman. At the
+     churchyard a countryman pushed forward between her and the coffin.
+     She thereupon disengaged her arm from that of her squire and struck
+     the countryman in the face.
+
+Miss Somerville observes that such stories may help to explain the
+French Revolution; but she adds, quite plausibly:--
+
+     It is no less characteristic of the time that the countryman's
+     attitude does not come into the story, but it seems to me probable
+     that he went home and boasted then, and for the rest of his life,
+     that old Madam---- had "bet him in a blow in the face."
+
+Undoubtedly the chieftain-spirit is admired, and not least when it shows
+itself in a woman. A more lenient and more modern example is to be found
+in the account of a dispute about bounds in a transaction under the Land
+Purchase Act. After all other agencies failed, the landlord's sister
+called the disputants before her to the disputed spot, stepped the
+distance of the land debatable, drove her walking-stick into a crevice
+of the rock (disputes are passionate in opposite ratio to the value of
+the land) and, collecting stones, built a small cairn round it. "Now
+men," she said, "in the name of God let this be the bounds." And it was
+so. "It failed the agent, and it failed the landlord, and it failed the
+priest; but Lady Mary settled it," was the summing up of one of the
+disputants. That was a chieftainess for you.
+
+Not inferior in chieftainly spirit was Martin Ross's grandfather who
+"had the family liking for a horse."
+
+     It is recorded that in a dealer's yard in Dublin he mounted a
+     refractory animal, in his frock-coat and tall hat, and took him
+     round St. Stephen's Green at a gallop, through the traffic, laying
+     into him with his umbrella.
+
+Somehow that picture gives a measure of the remoteness. Stephen's Green
+was not then a place of square-set granite pavement, tram-rails and
+large swift-moving electric trams; it was a leisurely promenade where
+large slow-moving country gentlemen turned out in tall hats and
+frock-coats. We of Miss Somerville's generation depend on our
+imagination, not on memory, to reconstruct the scene. The grandfather in
+question died before the great famine of 1847, which shook and in many
+places uprooted the old order without yet bringing in the new. His son,
+Martin Ross's father, had the famine to cope with and survived it; but
+of the second convulsion from which emerged the Ireland of to-day he saw
+only the beginning, for he died in 1873, when the organised peasant
+uprising was at most a menace. But his wife knew both periods--the bad
+times of the late 'forties and the bad times of the early eighties. The
+true link with the past for the writers of _Irish Memories_ is through
+the female line. This is a book of mothers and daughters rather than of
+fathers and sons.
+
+Martin Ross's mother went back easily in memory to the society which had
+known the Irish Parliament, had made or accepted the Union, and which,
+after the Union, exercised chieftainship in Ireland. She was the
+daughter of Chief Justice Bushe, one of Grattan's rivals in oratory,
+who, like Grattan, had opposed the Union with all the resources of his
+eloquence. Against his name in the private Castle list of voters for the
+crucial division had been written in despair one word: "Incorruptible."
+He was the common ancestor whose blood made the bond of kinship between
+Miss Somerville and Martin Ross, and both these staunch Unionist ladies
+are passionately proud of the part which their grandfather played in
+resisting the Union; just as you will find the staunchest Ulster
+Covenanters exulting in the fact that they had a forbear "out" with the
+United Irishmen at Antrim or Ballynahinch in 1798. No wonder Englishmen
+find Ireland puzzling; but Scots understand, for their own records
+abound in examples of the same paradoxes of historic sentiment.
+
+_Yesterday in Ireland_, I think, for my present purpose comes to define
+itself as the period between the famine of 1847 and the famine of
+1879--between the downfall of O'Connell and Parnell's coming to power.
+We who were born in the 'sixties grew up in the close of it, and perhaps
+recognise now more clearly than when they were with us the characters of
+our kindred who were a part of it as mature human beings. "The men and
+women, but more specially the women of my mother's family and
+generation, are a lost pattern, a vanished type." I could say the same
+as Miss Somerville. There was a spaciousness about those people, a
+disregard of forms and conventions, a habit of thinking and acting for
+themselves which really came down from a long tradition of interpreting
+the law to their own liking. Miss Somerville and her comrade knew the
+type in its fullest development, for both grew up in far-out
+Atlantic-bordering regions--Carbery of West Cork, Connemara of West
+Galway--where the countryside knew scarcely "any inhabitants but the
+gentry and their dependents. 'Where'd we be at all if it wasn't for the
+Colonel's Big Lady?' said the hungry country-women, in the Bad Times,
+scurrying, barefooted, to her in any emergency to be fed and doctored
+and scolded." So writes Miss Somerville of her mother; so might Martin
+Ross have written of her father, who was, so far as in him lay, a
+Providence for his tenantry. Yet there is a story told of Mr. Martin
+that throws a flood of light on the whole position of affairs. Who were
+indeed the dependents? And on what did they depend? The story tells of a
+widow down by Lough Corrib, long in arrears with her rent.
+
+     The Master sent to her two or three times, and in the end he walked
+     down himself, after his breakfast, and he took Thady (the steward)
+     with him. Well, when he went into the house, she was so proud to
+     see him, and "Your Honour is welcome," says she, and she put a
+     chair for him. He didn't sit down at all, but he was standing up
+     there with his back to the dresser, and the children were sitting
+     down one side the fire. The tears came from the Master's eyes,
+     Thady seen them fall down the cheek. "Say no more about the rent,"
+     says the Master to her, "you need say no more about it till I come
+     to you again." Well, it was the next winter, men were working in
+     Gurthnamuckla and Thady with them, and the Master came to the wall
+     of the field, and a letter in his hand, and he called Thady over to
+     him. What had he to show but the widow's rent that her brother in
+     America sent her.
+
+Martin Ross, writing in the light of to-day, makes this comment:--
+
+     It will not happen again; it belongs to an almost forgotten régime,
+     that was capable of abuse, yet capable too of summoning forth the
+     best impulses of Irish hearts.
+
+War, famine and pestilence--all these are capable of summoning forth
+splendid impulses; but society should not be organised to give play to
+these hazards of feeling. The fundamental truth about yesterday in
+Ireland is that everybody accepted as natural a state of affairs under
+which Irish gentry were taking rents that could not be earned on the
+land which was burdened with them. Landlord and tenant alike were really
+dependent on what was sent back by the sons and daughters of poor people
+from America to prevent the break-up of homes. The whole situation was
+false, from top to bottom. At top, a small class, physically and often
+mentally superb, full of charm, extraordinarily agreeable, fit for great
+uses, but by temperament, habit and education unequipped for its proper
+task of equipping and directing the labour out of which ultimately it
+had to live or perish. It perished. At bottom, a multitude with
+marvellous constitution, undermined by age-long under-feeding, friendly,
+most lovable, most winning, but untrained and unequipped, half-hearted
+in its business of rolling the pitiless stone up the never-ending hill.
+It survived--clinging with a desperate tenacity to the soil which so
+meagrely nourished it. But during that generation of yesterday--and how
+many generations before it?--there grew up inevitably, from the
+conditions, a traditional toleration of incompetence, a faith as it were
+in inefficiency. Ireland of yesterday was bound up in one vicious circle
+of work that was necessarily underpaid because it was inefficient, and
+work that was necessarily inefficient because it was underpaid. In the
+lower class there were no reserves; the dependants lived from hand to
+mouth, and when hand failed to find food, they had to come to the upper
+class, first for remission of its claims on them and then for actual
+subsistence. But the dependence was mutual, and there were no reserves
+at top equal to the needs of that joint hazard. Penury was only at two
+removes from the "gentry houses." While the first line of defence, the
+tenants, held good, the world went pleasantly for the Ireland of
+yesterday. But when that line broke, and starvation burst in, then the
+best men and women in the big houses flung their all into the common
+stock, and went under--as did the chief of the Martins in Connemara.
+
+That, however, happened the day before yesterday; yesterday saw nothing
+so dire. But the menace of it was always there, and the rest of Ireland
+gradually consolidated itself for a struggle to win what had long ago
+been acquired for Protestant Ulster--the right of a tenant to what his
+own labour created. The Ulster custom has done for Ulster, industrial as
+well as agricultural, more than is generally perceived. It gave in some
+degree recognition to efficiency. Tenure was there less precarious, less
+dependent on the landlord's pleasure; men were freer, work had more
+rights. There was less room for impulse, perhaps less appeal to
+affection; but when a business relation is based on impulse and
+affection, where rights are not solid and defined, the sense of
+obligation easily leads men astray. That which is given out of loyalty
+and affection comes to be taken as a due. Martin Ross--"Miss Violet,"
+whom the people of Ross called "the gentle lady," as beautiful a name as
+was ever earned by mortal--inherited with little qualification the
+landlord standpoint. She recalls the story of an election in 1872, when
+her father, going to vote in Oughterard, saw "a company of infantry
+keeping the way for Mr. Arthur Guinness (afterwards Lord Ardilaun) as he
+conveyed to the poll a handful of his tenants to vote for Captain
+Trench, he himself walking in front with the oldest of them on his arm."
+She does not ask if the tenants desired to be so conveyed. She merely
+describes how her father "ranged through the crowd incredulously, asking
+for this or that tenant, unable to believe that they had deserted him."
+When he came home, "even the youngest child of the house could see how
+great had been the blow. It was not the political defeat, severe as
+that was, it was the personal wound, and it was incurable."
+
+Looking back through all those years, the "gentle lady" can see nothing
+in that episode but a case of priestly intimidation. "One need not blame
+the sheep who passed in a frightened huddle from one fold to another."
+Yet friends of mine in Galway look back on it in a very different
+spirit; they remember the Nolan-Trench election and Captain Nolan's
+victory as a triumph of the poor, a first instalment of freedom; it
+brought with it an exultation very different from the mere outburst of
+hatred that these pages suggest. What is more, having been privileged to
+sit in the most widely representative assembly of Irishmen that modern
+Ireland has known, I can testify that to-day peer and peasant, clergy
+and laymen, those who opposed it, and those others who fought for it,
+alike admit that the change which such a victory fore-shadowed was
+necessary and was beneficent. But it was a revolution. Ireland of
+yesterday was Ireland before the revolution. The Ireland that Miss
+Somerville and Martin Ross have lived in as grown women has been a
+country in the throes of a revolution, long drawn-out, with varying
+phases, yet still incomplete. Those who judge Ireland should remember
+this. In time of revolution, life is difficult, ancient loyalties clash
+with new yet living principles, sympathy and justice even are unsure
+guides. No country could have been kept for forty years in such a
+ferment as Ireland has known without profound demoralisation. We may
+well envy those who lived more easily and quietly in the Ireland of
+yesterday, and held with an unquestioning spirit to the state of things
+in which they were born.
+
+Such were the folk of whom Miss Somerville writes with "that indomitable
+family pride that is an asset of immense value in the history of a
+country." They "took all things in their stride without introspection or
+hesitation. Their unflinching conscientiousness, their violent
+church-going (I speak of the sisters), were accompanied by a
+whole-souled love of a spree and a wonderful gift for a row." I can
+corroborate her details, especially the last. All those that I recall
+had some talent for feuds; at least, in every family there would be one
+warrior, male or female; and all had the complete contempt, not so much
+for convention as for those who were affected in their lives (or
+costumes) by any standard that was not home-made. But in all humility I
+must admit that the real heroines of this book--Mrs. Somerville and Mrs.
+Martin--outshine anything that my memory can produce. When Martin Ross
+and her mother went back to West Galway and re-established themselves at
+their old home, a letter from her to Miss Somerville describes one
+incident:--
+
+     I wish you had seen Paddy Griffy, a very active little old man, and
+     a beloved of mine, when he came down on Sunday night to welcome me.
+     After the usual hand-kissings on the steps, he put his hands over
+     his head and stood in the doorway, I suppose invoking his saint. He
+     then rushed into the hall.
+
+     "Dance, Paddy," screamed Nurse Bennett (my foster-mother, now our
+     maid-of-all-work).
+
+     And he did dance, and awfully well, too, to his own singing. Mamma,
+     who was attired in a flowing pink dressing-gown and a black hat
+     trimmed with lilac, became suddenly emulous, and with her spade
+     under her arm joined in the jig. This lasted for about a minute,
+     and was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. They skipped round the hall,
+     they changed sides, they swept up to each other and back again and
+     finished with the deepest curtseys.
+
+My own mother would gladly have done the same on a like occasion, but
+she lacked Mrs. Martin's talent for the jig. Mrs. Somerville is sketched
+with a free and humorous hand. I quote only one detail, but it shows the
+real Irishwoman, more deeply in touch with Ireland's traditional life
+than any Gaelic League could bring her. Question arose how to find a
+suitable offering for 'an old servant of forty years' standing, whose
+fancies were few and her needs none.' "Give her a nice shroud," said
+Mrs. Somerville, "there's nothing in the world she'd like so well as
+that."
+
+Shakespeare could not have outdone that intuition, and only one of the
+larger breed would have been unconventional enough to suggest what the
+younger generation, hampered by other feelings than those of West
+Carbery, "were too feeble to accept."
+
+These two traits belong to the harmonious and thoroughly Irish grouping
+in which such ladies as Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Somerville were central
+figures of the whole countryside. That grouping exists no longer, and
+this book has to describe the discord which interrupted that harmony.
+Martin Ross's elder brother, Robert Martin (famous in his day as the
+writer and singer of _Ballyhooly_, and a score of other topical songs),
+left his work as a London journalist to help in fighting the first
+campaign which brought the word "boycott" into usage.
+
+     It was at this work (his sister writes), that Robert knew for the
+     first time what it was to have every man's hand against him, to
+     meet the stare of hatred, the jeer and the sidelong curse; to face
+     endless drives on outside cars with his revolver in his hand; to
+     plan the uphill tussle with boycotted crops and cattle for which a
+     market could scarcely be found; to know the imminence of death,
+     when by accidentally choosing one of two roads he evaded the man
+     with a gun who had gone out to wait for him.
+
+Robert Martin faced, in a word, the earliest and ugliest phases of that
+Irish revolution, which was the Nemesis of the all too easy and too
+pleasant ways of yesterday in Ireland. Later, after his death, Martin
+Ross herself had to gain some experience of the same trouble. When she
+went back with her mother to re-establish the family home from which
+they had been fifteen years absent, there was a hostile element in the
+parish, and gracious hospitality was ungraciously met. An attempt was
+made to keep children from a children's party which she had organised.
+The move was half-hearted and her energy defeated it, but that the
+attempt should be made was such "a facer" as she had never before known.
+Like many another ugly thing in Ireland, it originated in that cowardly
+fear of public opinion which is to be found on the seamy side of all
+revolutions; and it did not stand against her "gallant fight to restore
+the old ways, the old friendships."
+
+The old ways, in so far as they meant the old friendships, she might
+hope to restore, although the friendship would, half consciously, take
+on a new accent; personality would count for more in it, position for
+less. But the old relation which authorised a kind-hearted landlord to
+feel that his tenants had "deserted him" because they voted against his
+wish in an election--that is gone for ever; and gone, at all events, for
+the present, is the local leadership of the gentry.
+
+I question whether it is realised that in parting from that leadership
+Ireland lost what was in a sense Home Rule. In the "yesterday" of which
+I write Ireland was governed in all its parochial and most intimate
+affairs by a class or a caste; but that governing class was Irish--Irish
+with a limitation, no doubt, yet still indisputably Irish. When that
+rule perished, when that class lost its local ascendancy, government
+became the bastard compromise that we have known, with power
+inharmoniously divided between officialdom and agitators. The law was
+framed and administered by officials, often English or Scotch,
+possessing no authority except what the law conferred on them. Authority
+lay very largely with popular leaders; but leadership and authority
+alike were purely personal, depending on a man's own qualities and the
+support which they evoked. No man was born to it as of right, and such
+authority is far more precarious than the established power of a
+governing class. This is a weakness in all democratically-governed
+countries, but where there is self-government, the individual, in
+entering upon office, acquires the support and the prestige of a
+long-established machinery of power. He ceases to be merely the
+individual when he becomes part of the Government. For the Irish leaders
+this reinforcement to the personal authority has never existed; they
+have been at a terrible disadvantage as compared with all other
+democratic politicians; and consequently the power exercised by them has
+always, except perhaps at Parnell's zenith, been far less than was the
+combined authority of the gentry before the landlord rule was broken.
+Those who shared in that authority acted, and could afford to act, with
+unquestioning confidence; they were surer of themselves, than is any
+popular leader or any official in Ireland of to-day. It seldom occurred
+to them to ask whether their conduct in any juncture might meet with
+approval; being a law to other people, they were naturally a law to
+themselves, and an Irish law. Their power was excessive, and demoralised
+them by its lack of limitation; yet many of the qualities which it bred,
+made them an element of great value in the country. These qualities are
+by no means extinct in their kindred, nor is the tradition of their
+right to leadership forgotten.
+
+Of one thing Miss Somerville and those for whom she speaks (she is a
+real spokeswoman) may be well assured. Whatever be the surface mood of
+the moment, whatever the passing effect of war's hectic atmosphere,
+nothing is more deeply realised throughout Ireland than the need to
+restore the old ways, the old friendships--the need to bring back the
+gentry to their old uses in Ireland, and to so much of leadership as
+should be theirs by right of fitness. When the history of the Irish
+Convention comes to be fully recorded, it will be seen that a great
+desire was universally felt, cordially uttered, in that assembly, to
+bridge over the gulf which divides us from yesterday in Ireland, and to
+recover for the future much of what was admirable, valuable and lovable
+in a past that is not unkindly remembered. Indeed, it is plain that Miss
+Somerville has felt the influences that were abroad on the winds, when
+she wrote of her comrade:--
+
+     Her love of Ireland, combined with her distrust of some of those
+     newer influences in Irish affairs to which her letters refer, made
+     her dread any weakening of the links that bind the United Kingdom
+     into one; but I believe that if she were here now, and saw the
+     changes that the past eighteen months have brought to Ireland, she
+     would be quick to welcome the hope that Irish politics are lifting
+     at last out of the controversial rut of centuries, and that
+     although it has been said of East and West that "never the two
+     shall meet," North and South will yet prove that in Ireland it is
+     always the impossible that happens.
+
+North and South--that is a more difficult gulf to bridge, for the one I
+have been speaking of is only a breach to repair. But industrial
+Protestant Ulster and the rest of Ireland have never really been one.
+Unity there has not to be re-established, but created. Martin Ross went
+to the North only once "at the tremendous moment of the signing of the
+Ulster Covenant," and she was profoundly impressed by what she saw. She
+wrote about it publicly and she wrote also privately (in a letter which
+I had the honour to receive) a passage well worth quoting:--
+
+     I did not know the North at all. What surprised me about the place
+     was the feeling of cleverness and go, and also the people struck me
+     as being hearty. If only the South would go up North and see what
+     they are doing there, and how they are doing it, and ask them to
+     show them how, it would make a good deal of difference. And then
+     the North should come South and see what nice people we are, and
+     how we do that.
+
+When that reciprocal pilgrimage was accomplished by the Convention, her
+anticipations were more than justified. But how clever she was! In a
+flash, she, coming there a stranger, hits on the word which describes
+Ulster and differentiates it from the rest of Ireland. "Hearty," that is
+what they are; it is the good side of their self-content. No people that
+is in revolution can be hearty--least of all when revolution has dragged
+on through more than a generation. Distrust of your comrades--distrust
+of your leaders--self-distrust--these are the characteristic vices of
+revolution (look at Russia), and they sow a bitter seed. Protestant
+Ulster has never known revolution; for it yesterday and to-day have been
+happily, naturally, continuous. Political change it has known, normal
+and beneficent; land purchase came to Ulster as a by-product of what the
+rest of Ireland endured in torment, and agony, and self-mutilation.
+Clever the Northerns are, but their cleverness issues prosperously in
+action; they carry on in a solidly-established order; they have not
+needed to break down before they could begin to build. That is why their
+heartiness stood out when they were assembled, as I have seen them in a
+common council of Irishmen, which was also, thank heaven, a
+companionship. But the world at large can see it exhibited in another
+way. Contrast the work of the Ulster Players with that of the Abbey
+Theatre. _The Drone_ is perhaps not the best of new Irish comedies, but
+it is infinitely the pleasantest; there is no bitter tang in its hearty
+humour. Even in _The Enthusiast_, a sketch which has some touch of
+pessimism, there is little more than a good-humoured shrug of the
+shoulders when the Enthusiast abandons his pretensions to make himself
+heard against the banging of Orange drums. I find a very different note,
+not merely in the work of Synge, of Boyle, Colum, Lennox Robinson, and
+the rest of the Abbey dramatists, but even in the books of which Miss
+Somerville was joint author. When Ireland is seen with the eyes, for
+instance, of her Major Yeates, is not the whole attitude one of amused
+and acquiescent resignation? Take the hunting out of it (with all the
+humours of the hunt)--take the shooting and fishing--and what is left
+but a life (to borrow a phrase from Mr. George Moore) "as melancholy as
+bog-water and as ineffectual." Miss Somerville would probably decline
+to imagine an Ireland with these unthinkable suppressions, but after
+all, we cannot live by or for sport alone. What gave dignity and reality
+to the life of yesterday was leadership in one class, and loyalty in the
+other. Leadership resting on ownership is gone now, dead as the dodo;
+what is left for the like (say) of Mr. Flurry Knox if he should begin to
+take himself seriously? You can easily make a soldier of him; we have
+all met him in trenches and observed his airy attitude in No Man's Land.
+But soldiering has generally meant expatriation. For my part, I hope
+some day to see this gentleman (or his like) play a useful part in some
+battalion of Irish territorials--some home service offshoot of the
+Connaught Rangers. But that is not enough. If those who, like Miss
+Somerville, love Ireland's yesterday and desire to link it up with a
+worthy to-morrow, there must be a wider understanding of Ireland, not in
+the North only, but in that element of the South and West which stands
+to-day in a sense morally expatriated. The Irish gentry who complain
+that their tenants "deserted" them must learn where they themselves
+failed their tenants. Leadership cannot depend merely on a power to
+evict, and they would to-day repudiate the desire for a leadership so
+grounded. But between free men where there is not comprehension there
+can be no leadership.
+
+I take first what is most difficult--the very heart of antagonism.
+Everyone who desires to understand Ireland to-day should read Patrick
+Pearse's posthumous book, called boldly _The Story of a Success_.[1] It
+is the spiritual history of Pearse's career as a schoolmaster, edited
+and completed by his pupil, Desmond Ryan; and it is a book by which no
+one can be justly offended--a book instinct with nobility, chivalry and
+high courtesy, free from all touch of bitterness; a book, too, shot
+through and slashed with that tragic irony which the Greeks knew to be
+the finest thrill in literature--the word spoken, to which the foreknown
+event gives an echo of double meaning. Pearse was concerned with
+Ireland's yesterday; he desired to bring the present and the future into
+organic rotation with the past. But his yesterday was not Miss
+Somerville's nor mine. The son of an English mechanic and a Galway
+woman, he was brought up in Connemara after the landlord power had
+ceased to exist. Ireland's past for him and Irish tradition were seen
+through the medium of an imagination in touch only with the peasant
+life, but inspired by books and literature, written and spoken. His
+yesterday was of no definite past, for he had been born in a revolution
+when the immediate past was obliterated. In his vision a thousand years
+were no more than the watch of some spellbound chivalry, waiting for the
+voice that should say, "It is the time." Cuchulain and Robert Emmet were
+his inspirations, but the champion of the legendary Red Branch cycle and
+the young revolutionary of Napoleon's days were near to him one as the
+other, in equally accessible communion. Going back easily to the heroic
+legends, on which, though blurred in their outline, his boyhood had been
+fostered by tellers of long-transmitted tales at a Connemara hearthside,
+he found the essential beauty and significance where more learned though
+less cultured readers have been bewildered by what seemed to them wild
+extravagances of barbarism. What he gathered from them did not lie
+inert, but quickened in him and in others, for he was the revolutionary
+as schoolmaster--the most drastic revolutionary of all. In the school
+review which was the first vehicle for these writings of his, he hoped
+to found "the rallying point for the thought and aspirations of all
+those who would bring back again in Ireland that Heroic Age which
+reserved its highest honour for the hero who had the most childlike
+heart, for the king who had the largest pity, and for the poet who
+visioned the truest image of beauty." All his theory of education was
+based on the old Irish institution of fosterage, which was no mere
+physical tie of the breast; the child sent to be fostered was sent to be
+bred and trained, and it was a tie stronger than that of its blood or of
+the breast. _Irish Memories_ shows incidentally how great a part this
+fosterage played in the Ross of yesterday--that family with its
+multitude of children was bound to the countryside by all the "Nursies."
+But the Martin household, and all similar households were, in a less
+literal sense, fostered by the peasantry at large. The truest part of
+education should be to know your own country (a principle much neglected
+in Ireland), and which of us all, who had the good fortune to be brought
+up in touch with Irish peasant life, does not realise our debt? We
+received a devotion, an affection, for which no adequate return could be
+made--it is the nature of fosterage that the fosterer should give more
+than can ever be requited; but we gained also our real knowledge, in so
+far as we ever had it, of the countryside, the traditional wisdom, the
+inherited way of life. There was more to be got if we had the wit to
+assimilate it. Almost all of modern Irish literature that has lasting
+value is evoked from elements floating in peasant memory, in the peasant
+mind, and in the coloured peasant speech of an Ireland which keeps
+unbroken descent from a long line of yesterdays. Mr. Yeats is only the
+chief of those who draw from this source. Miss Somerville herself and
+her cousin must have known well that the real worth of their work lies
+in their instinct for the poetry which, more specially in
+Gaelic-speaking regions, sits in rags by roadside and chimney corner.
+Irish poetry is not only the tragic voice of the keene; Gaelic had its
+comic muse as well, a robust virago, of the breed which produced
+Aristophanes and Rabelais--and Slipper with his gift for epic narrative
+is a camp-follower of that regiment.
+
+[Footnote 1: "The Story of a Success." By P. H. Pearse. Being a Record of
+St. Erda's College, September, 1908, to Easter, 1916. Edited by Desmond
+Ryan, B.A. Maunsel & Co.]
+
+Yet in Miss Somerville's appreciation there is often--not always--a
+sense of the incongruity as well as of the beauty in peasant speech. The
+woman crying for alms of bread who described her place of habitation, "I
+do be like a wild goose over on the side of Drominidy Wood," moves to
+laughter as well as to pity with the dignity of her phrase. Ireland so
+felt is Ireland perceived from the outside--seen as a picturesque ruin.
+You cannot so see Pearse; he is too strong for even compassionate
+laughter. What he embodies is the central strength of Irish
+nationalism--its disregard of the immediate event.
+
+     Wise men have told me that I ought never to set my foot on a path
+     unless I can see clearly whither it will lead me. But that
+     philosophy would condemn most of us to stand still till we rot.
+     Surely one can do no more than assure one's self that each step one
+     takes is right; and as to the rightness of a step one is
+     fortunately answerable only to one's conscience and not to the wise
+     men of the counting house. The street will pass judgment on our
+     enterprises according as they have "succeeded" or "failed." But if
+     one can feel that one has striven faithfully to do a right thing,
+     does not one stand ultimately justified, no matter what the issue
+     of one's attempt, no matter what the sentence of the street?
+
+By such teaching he commended to his scholars, and to Ireland, the
+spirit which he desired to see expressed in "that laughing gesture of a
+young man that is going into battle or climbing to a gibbet." Strange
+country, that has the gibbet always before the eyes and almost before
+the aspiration of its idealists! It was so yesterday--in all the
+yesterdays--and yet the reason is plain. All the aspirations of such
+idealists have been regarded as criminal by the class for which Miss
+Somerville and her cousin speak--criminal and menacing to those who,
+holding the power, arrogated to themselves a monopoly of loyalty. They
+have always conceived of Pearse and his like as thirsting for their
+blood. Miss Edgeworth, in a letter printed for the first time in _Irish
+Memories_, writes:--"I fear our throats will be cut by order of
+O'Connell and Co. very soon." We know enough to-day about O'Connell to
+realise how far this estimate lay from the truth of things; yet Miss
+Somerville herself talks about "Parnell and his wolf-pack." Justin
+McCarthy, John Redmond, Willie Redmond--these were some of the wolves
+who presumably wanted to tear Miss Somerville's kindred to pieces. That
+is where the change must come; there must be among the gentry some
+generous understanding of Nationalist leaders before the grave has
+closed over them. Anyone can see what is bad in Sinn Féin, but no one
+can fight that evil effectively, no one can convert to better uses the
+ill-guided force which Sinn Féin represents, until he understands what
+is best in it. Sinn Féin has largely replaced a movement which, in its
+later phases, dwelt perhaps too much on the material advantages which it
+offered as the reward of support. Sinn Féin's strength has lain not in
+what it has offered, but in what it has asked; it has asked for
+devotion, and Pearse certainly both gave that and received it. Such was
+his teaching, and I do not know a better saying for the Irish gentry to
+ponder over than the last sentence in these essays of his: "The highest
+thing anyone can do is to serve."
+
+That temper was perhaps lacking in the Ireland of yesterday which Miss
+Somerville so lovingly describes. To command loyalty as a right, to
+reward it by generosity, by indulgence--this made part of the ideal of
+leadership; but scarcely to be laborious either in rendering or exacting
+capable work.
+
+The old way of life was good for children, as Martin Ross describes it
+in her sketch of her brother's upbringing.
+
+     Everything in those early days of his was large and vigorous; tall
+     trees to climb, great winds across the lake to wrestle with,
+     strenuous and capable talk upstairs and downstairs, in front of
+     furnaces of turf and logs, long drives and the big Galway welcome
+     at the end of them.
+
+But for the grown men, it lacked one thing: effort. Pleasant it was;
+lots of everything, lots of hunting, lots of game on the moors and bogs,
+lots of fish in lake and river, lots of beef and mutton on the farm,
+lots of logs and turf, lots of space--above all, lots of time, and
+always the spirit for a spree that made everyone "prefer good fun to a
+punctual dinner." There was only one deficiency: that way of life was
+apt to be short of cash. It was, in short, a life that could not pay its
+way. The "big Galway welcome" is just as big with a sounder economic
+system, that rests solidly on men's own work. Anyone who knows Western
+Ireland can tell you that the quality of work is better on the land
+where men are their own masters than it was in the old days. Yet even
+there we are not out of the old vicious circle of under-pay and
+under-work; and in the industrial life we are fully entangled in it. But
+here also the revolutionary as schoolmaster has appeared. To my thinking
+the most momentous apparition in Ireland of our times is that of Mr.
+Ford, who is paying American wage rates for labour in Cork, and
+calculating, not to get value for his money at once, but to teach labour
+to be worth it. According to his gospel, as it was expounded to me, you
+will not get efficiency by offering to pay the wages of efficiency when
+labour becomes efficient: you must first provide the conditions of
+efficiency and then teach, just as in the army your first care is to get
+a recruit fit and your second to make him thorough in his ground work.
+That is the practical recognition of what yesterday in Ireland failed to
+recognise.
+
+Nor does this ideal of strenuous and capable work exclude either the
+strenuous and capable talk of Martin Ross's Galway household or anything
+else that was excellent in the old way. Certainly the most laborious and
+the most prosperous peasant household that I have ever known (and for
+many months I was part of it) was the most thoroughly and traditionally
+Irish, except that it was removed by one generation from Gaelic speech.
+But the whole cast of mind was Gaelic, remote as the poles from that
+"newer Ireland" which is in revolt against all tradition of
+authority--and, if they only knew it, against all Irish tradition. Miss
+Somerville thinks, as a page in her book shows, that the newer Ireland
+has lost the endearing courtesy which is imposed by the genius of the
+Gaelic tongue, and is for that matter to be found in every line of
+Pearse's essays. We can educate back to that without any detriment; we
+can be as efficient and as courteous as the Japanese. Another thing is
+gone. Ireland of yesterday, even in its poverty, was a merry country;
+to-day, even in its prosperity, it is full of bitter, mirthless rancour
+and hate. It will be a great thing if we can help to preserve for
+Ireland the exquisite benediction which a beggar woman in Skibbereen
+laid upon Martin Ross: "Sure, ye're always laughing! That ye may laugh
+in the sight of the glory of Heaven."
+
+1918.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Irish Books and Irish People, by Stephen Gwynn
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH BOOKS AND IRISH PEOPLE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22264-8.txt or 22264-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/2/6/22264/
+
+Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/22264-8.zip b/22264-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..edb396f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-8.zip
diff --git a/22264-h.zip b/22264-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..65a1d47
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-h.zip
diff --git a/22264-h/22264-h.htm b/22264-h/22264-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..51ee9a7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-h/22264-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,3779 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Irish Books and Irish People, by Stephen Gwynn.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    hr { width: 33%;
+	 margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */
+    div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */
+
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: right;
+              } /* page numbers */
+
+    .linenum  {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */
+    .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;}
+
+    .author {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;}
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+
+
+    .footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+    .footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+    .footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+    .fnanchor         {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;}
+
+    .poem             {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
+    .poem br          {display: none;}
+    .poem .stanza     {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+    .poem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i2     {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i4     {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i8     {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Irish Books and Irish People, by Stephen Gwynn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Irish Books and Irish People
+
+Author: Stephen Gwynn
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22264]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH BOOKS AND IRISH PEOPLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>IRISH BOOKS<br /><br />
+AND IRISH PEOPLE</h1>
+
+<h4>By</h4>
+
+<h2>STEPHEN GWYNN.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="center">DUBLIN<br />
+The Talbot Press Ltd.<br />
+89 Talbot Street<br /><br />
+LONDON<br />
+T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.<br />
+1 Adelphi Terrace
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="65%" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>Page</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>INTRODUCTION</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>NOVELS OF IRISH LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A CENTURY OF IRISH HUMOUR</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES:</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">I.&mdash;THE SHANACHY</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">II.&mdash;THE LIFE OF A SONG</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>IRISH EDUCATION AND IRISH CHARACTER</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_65'><b>65</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE IRISH GENTRY</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>YESTERDAY IN IRELAND</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>My publisher must take at least some of the responsibility for reviving
+these essays. All bear the marks of the period at which they were
+written; and some of them deal with the beginnings of movements which
+have since grown to much greater strength, and in growing have developed
+new characteristics at the expense of what was originally more
+prominent. Other pages, again, take no account of facts which to-day
+must be present to the mind of every Irish reader, and so are, perhaps
+significantly, out of date. Nobody for instance, could now complain that
+Irish humour is lacking in seriousness. Synge disposed of that
+criticism&mdash;and, indeed, the Abbey Theatre in its tone as a whole may be
+accused of neglecting Ireland's gift for simple fun. Yet Lady Gregory
+made the most of it in her "Spreading the News," and Mr. Yeats in his
+"Pot of Broth."&mdash;How beautifully W. G. Fay interpreted an Irish laughter
+which had no bitterness in it.</p>
+
+<p>But the strong intellectual movement which has swept over Ireland has
+been both embittering and embittered. These last five and twenty years
+have been the most formative in the country's history of any since
+Ireland became the composite nation that she now is, or, perhaps, has
+yet to become. At the back of it all lies the great social change
+involved in the transfer of ownership from the landlord to the
+cultivators of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> soil&mdash;a change which has literally disenserfed
+three-fourths of Ireland's people. Yet the relations are obscure,
+indefinite, and intangible, which unite that material result to the
+outcome of two forces, allied but distinct, which have operated solely
+on men's minds and spirits. These are, of course, the Gaelic revival and
+the whole literary movement which has had its most concrete expression
+in the Irish theatre, and its most potent inspiration in the personality
+of Mr. Yeats.</p>
+
+<p>Of these two forces, one can show by far the more tangible effects, for
+the Gaelic League has issued in action. Setting out to revive and save
+the Irish language as a living speech, the instrument of a nation's
+intercourse, it has failed of its purpose; but it has revived and
+rendered potent the principle of separation. Nationalist, it will have
+nothing to do with a nationality that is not as plainly marked off from
+other nationalities as a red lamp from a green lamp; and the essential
+symbol of separate nationality is for orthodox Gaelic Leaguers a
+separate language. America, said an able exponent of this doctrine the
+other day in a public debate, will never and never can be a nation till
+its language is no longer recognisable as English&mdash;till its English
+differs as much from the language of England as German differs from
+Dutch. An inevitable corollary to this view is the necessity for
+complete political separation from Great Britain&mdash;if only to provide the
+machinery for this complete differentiation by daily speech.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot pretend to assess impartially the value of this movement. It
+asserted itself in passionate deeds at a moment when many thousands of
+us Nationalists were taking equally vigorous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> action in pursuit of a
+less tribal ideal. Thousands of us lost our lives, all of us risked our
+lives, with the hope of achieving a national unity which could never be
+built on the basis of regarding no man as an Irishman who did not speak,
+or at least desire to speak, Gaelic for his mother tongue. The action of
+Irish soldiers was thwarted and frustrated by the action of a very few
+separatists, with a very small expense to themselves in bloodshed. But
+the tribute to the work of the Gaelic League is that Ireland accepted
+them and rejected us. None can deny that it has been a potent stimulus
+to national education; and it only lacks official prohibition by the
+British Government to become more powerful still.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the outcome, I take back nothing of what is written in these
+papers concerning the Gaelic revival. In a country governed against the
+will of its people, forces that, under normal and healthy conditions,
+would be purely beneficent, may easily grow explosive and disruptive.
+Yet I have not changed my mind on a critical question which led me to
+sever my connection with the work of the Gaelic League. When that body
+decided to rely on compulsion rather than persuasion, it took the wrong
+road, if its object was to endear the Irish language to all Ireland, and
+to induce all Irishmen to cherish it as part of the common national
+heritage. As a result Ulstermen have a perfect right to say that if they
+accepted Home Rule, one of the first steps of an Irish government formed
+under the present auspices would be to demand a knowledge of Gaelic as
+the necessary qualification for holding any public office.</p>
+
+<p>I do not believe that this tribal idealism which is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> now so potent will
+endure. It is out of harmony with the world's development&mdash;a world which
+in order to preserve the very principle of small nationalities, is
+growing more and more international. America is not only a nation, but
+is the type of the modern nation&mdash;bound together less by what it
+inherits from the past, than by what it hopes from the future.</p>
+
+<p>The other force which has been operating through these years is, in a
+sense, obliged to give the lie to the pretensions of the Gaelic League.
+Yeats and Synge have showed how completely it is possible to be Irish
+while using the English language. They have accepted the fact that
+Ireland to-day thinks in English, but they have endeavoured to give to
+Ireland a distinctively Irish thought, coloured by the whole racial
+tradition and temperament. With them has been allied a personality not
+less Irish, yet less obviously Irish&mdash;"A.E.," George Russell. Between
+them, these writers and thinkers have profoundly influenced the mind of
+the generation younger than themselves. It is not possible to deny that
+Ireland's literary output during those last twenty years is far more
+important and serious than that of the whole preceding century. The only
+part of it exempt from these influences is the work of Edith Somerville
+and Martin Ross; and even that is based on a closer study of
+distinctively Irish speech than had ever been attempted in earlier days.
+The propagandist work of Pearse and Arthur Griffiths&mdash;equal in merit to
+that of their forerunners, Davis and Mitchel&mdash;was Irish only in
+substance and spirit, not in form or accent&mdash;a thing the less
+surprising, since both men were only half Irish by parentage. But the
+whole group of writers, of whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> it may be said that their writings are
+almost as unmistakably Irish as the work of Burns is Scotch, have
+followed Mr. Yeats and Synge in this, that in writing they assume an
+Irish public, not an English one; they make no explanations, they speak
+as to those who share their own inheritance. In this group has been
+fostered a spirit of the freedom which belongs properly to art. Thus the
+school, for it may justly be called a school, has created its own
+tradition, and it has been a tradition of freedom, not asserted but
+exercised: a freedom, not as against England, but as against all the
+world. Everywhere, but especially in countries undergoing revolutionary
+change, there is a tyranny of the crowd. When the Gaelic League decided
+to make the learning of Irish compulsory, it attorned to this tyranny.
+On the other hand, Mr. Yeats, at a moment when the Abbey Theatre seemed
+about to become popular, was threatened by a fiat of this
+mob-dictatorship; he was told that his theatre must become unpopular
+unless he would throw overboard most of Synge's work. By the stand which
+he then made he did a greater service to freedom of the mind in Ireland
+than has yet been at all recognised; he helped to make his country
+fearless and strong. Thanks mainly to him and to those who worked with
+him, Ireland's thought is freer and more outspoken; there is more
+thought in Ireland than there used to be. This does not make the country
+easier to govern, and just now, Ireland, if given the opportunity, would
+have a hard task to govern itself. But Ireland would not be the only
+country in the world in that predicament. The schoolmaster has been
+abroad, and where you have education without liberty there is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> bound to
+be trouble. The only cure is, not to suppress education, but to give the
+responsibility of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>I have left these papers in order as they were written, with dates
+annexed. One of them, <i>Literature among the Illiterates</i>, was published
+in an earlier volume, <i>To-day and To-morrow in Ireland</i> which is now out
+of print. I include it here, because it completes the companion essay,
+called <i>The Life of a Song</i>.</p>
+
+<p>My acknowledgments are due to the various publications in which they
+have all, except the last, previously appeared.</p>
+
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Dublin</span>, <i>March</i>, 1919.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="NOVELS_OF_IRISH_LIFE_IN_THE_NINETEENTH_CENTURY" id="NOVELS_OF_IRISH_LIFE_IN_THE_NINETEENTH_CENTURY"></a>NOVELS OF IRISH LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"What Ireland wants," said an old gentleman not very long ago, "is a
+Walter Scott." The remedy did not seem very practical, since Walter
+Scotts will not come to order, but the point of view is worth noting,
+for there you touch the central fact about Irish literature. We desire a
+Walter Scott that he may glorify our annals, popularise our legends,
+describe our scenery, and give an attractive view of the national
+character. In short, we know that Ireland possesses pre-eminently the
+quality of picturesqueness, and we should like to see it turned to good
+account. We want a Walter Scott to advertise Ireland, and to fill the
+hotels with tourists; but as for desiring to possess a great novelist
+simply for the distinction of the thing, probably no civilised people on
+earth is more indifferent to the matter. At present, indeed, a Walter
+Scott, should he appear in Ireland, would be apt to have a cold welcome.
+To write on anything connected with Irish history is inevitably to
+offend the Press of one party, and very probably of both. Lever is less
+of a caricaturist than Dickens, yet Dickens is idolised while Lever has
+been bitterly blamed for lowering Irish character in the eyes of the
+world; the charge is even repeated in the <i>Dictionary of National
+Biography</i>. That may be patriotic sentiment, but it is not criticism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Literature in Ireland, in short, is almost inextricably connected with
+considerations foreign to art; it is regarded as a means, not as an end.
+During the nineteenth century the belief being general among all classes
+of Irish people that the English know nothing of Ireland, every book on
+an Irish subject was judged by the effect it was likely to have upon
+English opinion, to which the Irish are naturally sensitive, since it
+decides the most important Irish questions. But apart from this
+practical aspect of the matter, there is a morbid national sensitiveness
+which desires to be consulted. Ireland, though she ought to count
+herself amply justified of her children, is still complaining that she
+is misunderstood among the nations; she is for ever crying out for
+someone to give her keener sympathy, fuller appreciation, and exhibit
+herself and her grievances to the world in a true light. The result is
+that kind of insincerity and special pleading which has been the curse
+of Irish or Anglo-Irish literature. I write of a literature which has
+its natural centre in Dublin, not in Connemara; which looks eastward,
+not westward. That literature begins with the <i>Drapier Letters</i>: it
+continues through the great line of orators in whom the Irish genius (we
+say nothing of the Celtic) has found its highest expression; and it
+produced its first novelist, perhaps also its best, in the unromantic
+person of Maria Edgeworth.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Edgeworth had a sound instinct for her art, disfigured though her
+later writings are by what Madame de Sta&ecirc;l called her <i>triste utilit&eacute;</i>.
+Her first story is her most artistic production. <i>Castle Rackrent</i> is
+simply a pleasant satire upon the illiterate and improvident gentry who
+have always been too common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> in her country. In this book she holds no
+brief; she never stops to preach; her moral is implied, not expressed. A
+historian might, it is true, go to <i>Castle Rackrent</i> for information
+about the conditions of land tenure as well as about social life in the
+Ireland of that day; but the erudition is part and parcel of her story.
+Throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, setting aside great towns,
+the main interest of life for all classes is the possession of land.
+Irish peasants seldom marry for love, they never murder for love; but
+they marry and they murder for land. To know something of the
+land-question is indispensable for an Irish novelist, and Miss Edgeworth
+graduated with honours in this subject. She was her father's agent; when
+her brother succeeded to the property she resigned, but in the troubles
+of 1830 she was recalled to the management, and saved the estate.
+<i>Castle Rackrent</i> is, therefore, like Galt's <i>Annals of the Parish</i>, a
+historical document; but it is none the worse story for that. The
+narrative is put dramatically into the mouth of old Thady, a lifelong
+servant of the family. Thady's son, Jason Quirk, attorney and agent to
+the estate, has dispossessed the Rackrents; but Thady is still "poor
+Thady," and regards the change with horror. Before recounting the
+history of his own especial master and patron, Sir Condy Rackrent, last
+of the line, Thady gives his ingenuous account of the three who
+previously bore the name; Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, and Sir Kit. Sir
+Patrick, the inventor of raspberry whiskey, died at table: "Just as the
+company rose to drink his health with three cheers, he fell down in a
+sort of fit, and was carried off; they sat it out, and were surprised in
+the morning to find that it was all over with poor Sir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> Patrick." That
+no gentleman likes to be disturbed after dinner, was the best recognised
+rule of life in Ireland; if your host happened to have a fit, you knew
+he would wish you to sit it out. Gerald Griffin in <i>The Collegians</i>
+makes the same point with his usual vigour. A shot is heard in the
+dining-room by the maids downstairs. They are for rushing in, but the
+manservant knows better: "Sure, don't you know, if there was anyone shot
+the master would ring the bell." After Sir Patrick, who thus lived and
+died, to quote his epitaph, "a monument of old Irish hospitality," came
+Sir Murtagh, "who was a very learned man in the law, and had the
+character of it"; another passion that seems to go with the land-hunger
+in Ireland. Sir Murtagh married one of the family of the Skinflints:
+"She was a strict observer for self and servants of Lent and all fast
+days, but not holidays." However, says Thady (is there not a strong
+trace of Swift in all this?).</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"However, my lady was very charitable in her own way. She had a
+charity school for poor children, where they were taught to read
+and write gratis, and where they were well kept to spinning gratis
+for my lady in return; for she had always heaps of duty yarn from
+the tenants, and got all her household linen out of the estate from
+first to last; for after the spinning, the weavers on the estate
+took it in hand for nothing, because of the looms my lady's
+interest could get from the Linen Board to distribute gratis....
+Her table the same way, kept for next to nothing; duty fowls, and
+duty turkeys, and duty geese came as fast as we could eat them, for
+my lady kept a sharp look-out and knew to a tub of butter
+everything the tenants had all round.... As for their young pigs,
+we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> had them, and the best bacon and hams they could make up, with
+all young chickens in the spring; but they were a set of poor
+wretches, and we had nothing but misfortunes with them, always
+breaking and running away. This, Sir Murtagh and my lady said, was
+all their former landlord, Sir Patrick's fault, who let 'em get the
+half year's rent into arrear; there was something in that, to be
+sure. But Sir Murtagh was as much the contrary way&mdash;"</p></div>
+
+<p>I have abridged my lady's methods, and I omit Sir Murtagh's, who taught
+his tenants, as he said, to know the law of landlord and tenant. But,
+"though a learned man in the law, he was a little too incredulous in
+other matters." He neglected his health, broke a blood-vessel in a rage
+with my lady, and so made way for Sir Kit the prodigal. Sir Kit was shot
+in a duel, and Sir Condy came into an estate which, between Sir
+Murtagh's law-suits and Sir Kit's gaming, was considerably embarrassed;
+indeed, the story proper is simply a history of makeshifts to keep rain
+and bailiffs out of the family mansion. Poor Sir Condy; he was the very
+moral of the man who is no man's enemy but his own, and was left at the
+last with no friend but old Thady. Even Judy Quirk turned against him,
+forgetting his goodness in tossing up between her and Miss Isabella
+Moneygawl, the romantic lady who eloped with him after the toss. She
+deserted before Judy; here is a bit of the final scene. Thady was going
+upstairs with a slate to make up a window-pane.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"This window was in the long passage, or gallery, as my lady gave
+orders to have it called, in the gallery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> leading up to my master's
+bedchamber and hers. And when I went up with the slate, the door
+having no lock, and the bolt spoilt, was ajar after Mrs. Jane (my
+lady's maid), and as I was busy with the window, I heard all that
+was saying within. 'Well, what's in your letter, Bella, my dear?'
+says he. 'You're a long time spelling it over.' 'Won't you shave
+this morning, Sir Condy?' says she, and put the letter into her
+pocket. 'I shaved the day before yesterday,' says he, 'my dear, and
+that's not what I'm thinking of now; but anything to oblige you,
+and to have peace and quietness, my dear,'&mdash;and presently I had the
+glimpse of him at the cracked glass over the chimney-piece,
+standing up shaving himself to please my lady."</p></div>
+
+<p>However, the quarrel comes on in a delightful scene, where Sir Condy
+shows himself at all events an amiable gentleman; and so my lady goes
+home to her own people. There you have Miss Edgeworth at her very best;
+and, indeed, <i>Castle Rackrent</i> received such a tribute as no other novel
+ever had paid to it. Many people have heard how when <i>Waverley</i> came to
+the Edgeworth household, Mr. Edgeworth, after his custom, read it aloud
+almost, as it would appear, at one sitting. When the end came for that
+fascinated circle, amid the chorus of exclamations, Mr. Edgeworth said:
+"What is this? <i>Postscript which ought to have been a preface</i>." Then
+there was a chorus of protests that he should not break the spell with
+prose. "Anyhow," he said, "let us hear what the man has to say," and so
+read on to the passage where Scott explained that he desired to do for
+Scotland what had been done for Ireland: "to emulate the admirable
+fidelity of Miss Edgeworth's portraits." What Maria<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> Edgeworth felt we
+know from the letter she posted off "to the Author of 'Waverley,' <i>Aut
+Scotus aut Diabolus</i>."</p>
+
+<p>It would be unkind to compare Scott with his model. For the poetry and
+the tragic power of his novels one would never think of looking in Miss
+Edgeworth. Her work is compact of observation; yet the gifts she has are
+not to be under-valued. She is mistress of a kindly yet searching
+satire, real wit, a fine vein of comedy; and she can rise to such true
+pathos as dignifies the fantastic figure of King Corny in <i>Ormond</i>,
+perhaps the best thing she ever did. But she had in her father a
+literary adviser, not of the negative but of the positive order, and
+there never was a more fully developed prig than Richard Edgeworth. His
+view of literature was purely utilitarian; to convey practical lessons
+was the business of all superior persons, more particularly of an
+Edgeworth. In <i>Castle Rackrent</i> his suggestions and comments are happily
+relegated to the position of notes; in the other books they form part
+and parcel of the novel. <i>The Absentee</i>, for instance, contains
+admirable dialogue and many life-like figures; but the scheme of the
+story conveys a sense of unreality. Every fault or vice has its
+counterbalancing virtue represented. Lady Clonbroney, vulgarly ashamed
+of her country, is set off by the patriotic Lady Oranmore; the virtuous
+Mr. Burke forms too obvious a pendant to the rascally agents old Nick
+and St. Dennis. It is needless to say that the exclusively virtuous
+people are deadly dull. It is the novel with a purpose written by a
+novelist whose strength lies in the delineation of character. Miss
+Edgeworth can never carry you away with her story, as Charles Reade
+sometimes can, and make you forget and forgive the virtuous intention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What was unreal in Miss Edgeworth became mere insincerity in her
+contemporary, Lady Morgan. Few people could tell you now where Thackeray
+got Miss Glorvina O'Dowd's baptismal name; yet <i>The Wild Irish Girl</i> had
+a great triumph in its day, and Glorvina stood sponsor to the milliners'
+and haberdashers' inventions ninety years before the apotheosis of
+Trilby. <i>O'Donnell</i>, which is counted Lady Morgan's best novel, gives a
+lively ideal portrait of the authoress, first as the governess-grub,
+then transformed by marriage into the butterfly-duchess. But the book is
+a thinly-disguised political pamphlet. "Look," she says in effect, "at
+the heroic virtues of O'Donnell, the young Irishman, driven to serve in
+foreign armies, despoiled of his paternal estates by the penal laws;
+look at the fidelity, the simplicity, the native humour (so dramatically
+effective) of his servant Rory; and then say if you will not plump for
+Catholic Emancipation." "My dear lady," the reader murmurs, "I wondered
+why you were so set upon underlining all these things. Can you not tell
+us a story frankly, and let us alone with your conclusions?"</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, very much the same has to be said of a far greater
+writer, William Carleton, even in those tales which are based upon his
+own most intimate experience. <i>The Poor Scholar</i>, his most popular
+story, proceeds directly from an episode in his own life. He had himself
+been a poor scholar, had set out from his northern home to walk to
+Munster, where the best known schools were, trusting to charity by the
+way to lodge him, and to charity to keep him throughout his schooling
+for the sake of his vocation, and for the blessing sure to descend upon
+those who aided a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> peasant's son to become a priest. Nothing could be
+more vivid than the early scenes, the collection made at the altar for
+Jimmy McEvoy, the priest's sermon, the boy's parting from home, and the
+roadside hospitality; there is one infinitely touching episode in the
+house of the first farmer who shelters him. Then come the school itself,
+and the tyranny of its master, till the boy falls sick of a fever, and
+is turned out of doors. Then, alas, the conventional intervenes in the
+person of the virtuous absentee ignorant of his agent's misdoings: the
+long arm of coincidence is stretched to the uttermost; and we have to
+wade through pages of discussion upon the relations of landlord and
+tenant till we are put wholly out of tune for the beautiful scene of
+Jimmy's return home in his priestly dress.</p>
+
+<p>Carleton did for the peasantry what Miss Edgeworth had done for the
+upper classes. In her books the peasants have only an incidental part,
+and she describes them shrewdly and sympathetically enough, but with a
+mind untouched either by their faith or by their superstitions; seeing
+their good and bad qualities clearly in a dry light, but never in
+imagination identifying herself with them. Superior to Miss Edgeworth in
+power and insight, he is immeasurably her inferior in literary skill.
+One should remember, in commenting upon the poverty of Irish literature
+in English, that, so far as concerns imaginative work, it began in the
+nineteenth century. Carleton only died in 1869, Miss Edgeworth in 1849;
+and before them there is no one.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand the speech of Lowland Scots, with whose richness in
+masterpieces our poverty is naturally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> contrasted, has been employed for
+literature as long as the vernacular English. A king of Scotland wrote
+admirable verse in the generation after Chaucer; the influence of the
+Court fostered poetry, and the close intercourse with France kept Scotch
+writers in touch with first-rate models. Dunbar, strolling as a friar in
+France, may have known Villon, whom he often resembles. In Ireland, till
+a century ago, English was as much a foreign language as Norman French
+in England under the Plantagenets. Among the English Protestants,
+settled in Ireland, and separated by a hard line of cleavage from the
+Catholic population, there arose great men in letters, Goldsmith, Burke,
+Sheridan, who showed their Irish temperament in their handling of
+English themes. But in Ireland itself, before the events of 1782 added
+importance to Dublin, there was no centre for a literature to gather
+round. Such national pride as exists in English-speaking Ireland dates
+from the days of Grattan and Flood. And Irish national aspirations still
+bear the impress of their origin amid that period of political turmoil,
+than which nothing is more hostile to the brooding care of literary
+workmanship, the long labour and the slow result. Irishmen have always
+shown a strong disinclination to pure literature. The roll of Irish
+novelists is more than half made up of women's names; Miss Edgeworth,
+Lady Morgan, Miss Emily Lawless, and Miss Jane Barlow. Journalists
+Ireland has produced as copiously as orators; the writers of <i>The Spirit
+of the Nation</i>, that admirable collection of stirring poems, are
+journalists working in verse; and Carleton, falling under their
+influence, became a journalist working in fiction. In his pages,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> even
+when the debater ceases to argue and harangue, the style is still
+journalistic, except in those passages where his dramatic instinct puts
+living speech into the mouths of men and women. Politics so monopolise
+the minds of Irishmen, newspapers so make up their whole reading, that
+the class to which Carleton and the poet Mangan belonged have never
+fully entered upon the heritage of English literature. If an English
+peasant knows nothing else, he knows the Bible and very likely Bunyan;
+but a Roman Catholic population has little commerce with that pure
+fountain of style. Genius cannot dispense with models, and Carleton and
+Mangan had the worst possible. Yet when it has been said that Carleton
+was a half-educated peasant, writing in a language whose best literature
+he had not sufficiently assimilated to feel the true value of words, it
+remains to be said that he was a great novelist. He cannot be fairly
+illustrated by quotation; but read any of his stories and see if he does
+not bring up vividly before you Ireland as it was before the famine;
+Ireland still swarming with beggars who marched about in families
+subsisting chiefly on the charity of the poor; Ireland of which the
+hedge-school was plainly to him the most characteristic institution.</p>
+
+<p>Carleton does not stand by himself; he is the head and representative of
+a whole class of Irish novelists, among whom John Banim is the best
+known name. All of them were peasants who aimed at depicting scenes of
+peasant life from their own experience. What one may call the
+melodramatic Irish story, in which Lever was so brilliantly successful,
+has its first famous example in <i>The Collegians</i> of Gerald Griffin. The
+novel has no concern with college life, and is far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> better described by
+its stage-title, <i>The Colleen Bawn</i>. Here at least is a man with a story
+to tell and no object but to tell it. Griffin belonged to the lay order
+of Christian Brothers: his book deals principally with a society no more
+familiar to him than was the household of Mr. Rochester to Charlotte
+Bront&euml;; and his method recalls the Bront&euml;s by its strenuous imagination
+and its vehement painting of passion. The tale was suggested by a murder
+which excited all Ireland. A young southern squire carried off a girl
+with some money, and procured her death by drowning. He was arrested at
+his mother's house and a terrible scene took place, terribly rendered in
+the book. Griffin, of course, changes the motive; the girl is carried
+off not for money but for love, and she is sacrificed to make way for a
+stronger passion. Eily O'Connor, the victim, is a pretty and pathetic
+figure; the hero-villain Hardress Cregan, and the mother who indirectly
+causes the crime, are effective though melodramatic; but the actual
+murderer, Danny the Lord, Hardress Cregan's familiar, is worthy of Scott
+or Hugo.</p>
+
+<p>In his sketches of society, Hyland Creagh, the duellist, old Cregan, and
+the rest, Griffin is describing a state of affairs previous to his own
+experience, the Ireland of Sir Jonah Barrington's memoirs; he is not, as
+were Carleton and Miss Edgeworth, copying minutely from personal
+observation. Herein he resembles Lever who, when all is said and done,
+remains the chief, as he is the most Irish, of Irish novelists. It is
+true that Lever had two distinct manners: and in his later books he
+deals chiefly with contemporary society, drawing largely on his
+experiences of diplomatic life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> Like most novelists he preferred his
+later work; but the books by which he is best known, <i>Harry Lorrequer</i>
+and the rest, are his earliest productions; and though his maturer skill
+was employed on different subjects, he formed his imagination in studies
+of the Napoleonic Wars and of a duelling, drinking, bailiff-beating
+Ireland. His point of view never altered, and the peculiar attraction of
+his writings is always the same. Lever's books have the quality rather
+of speech than of writing; wherever you open the pages there is always a
+witty, well-informed Irishman discoursing to you, who tells his story
+admirably, when he has one to tell, and, failing that, never fails to be
+pleasant. Irish talk is apt to be discursive; to rely upon a general
+charm diffused through the whole, rather than upon any quotable
+brilliancy; its very essence is spontaneity, high spirits, fertility of
+resource. That is a fair description of Lever. He is never at a loss. If
+his story hangs, off he goes at score with a perfectly irrelevant
+anecdote, but told with such enjoyment of the joke that you cannot
+resent the digression. Indeed the plots are left pretty much to take
+care of themselves; he positively preferred to write his stories in
+monthly instalments for a magazine; he is not a conscientious artist,
+but he lays himself out to amuse you, and he does it. If he advertises a
+character as a wit, he does not labour phrases to describe his
+brilliancy; he produces the witticisms. He has been accused of
+exaggeration. As regards the incidents, one can only say that the
+memoirs of Irish society at the beginning of this century furnish at
+least fair warranty for any of his inventions. In character-drawing he
+certainly overcharged the traits: but he did so with intention, and by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+consistently heightening the tones throughout obtained an artistic
+impression, which had life behind it, however ingeniously travestied.
+His stories have no unity of action, but through a great diversity of
+characters and incidents they maintain their unity of treatment. That is
+not the highest ideal of the novel, but it is an intelligible one, not
+lacking famous examples; and Lever perfectly understood it.</p>
+
+<p>If one wishes to realise how good an artist Lever was, the best way is
+to read his contemporary Samuel Lover. <i>Handy Andy</i> appeared somewhat
+later than <i>Harry Lorrequer</i>. It is just the difference between good
+whiskey and bad whiskey; both are indigenous and therefore
+characteristic, but let us be judged by our best. Obviously the men have
+certain things in common; great natural vivacity, and an easy cheerful
+way of looking at life. Lover can raise a laugh, but his wit is
+horseplay except for a few happy phrases. He has no real comedy; there
+is nothing in <i>Handy Andy</i> half so ingenious as the story in <i>Jack
+Hinton</i> of the way Ulick Bourke acquitted himself of his debt to Father
+Tom. And behind all Lever's conventional types there is a real fund of
+observation and knowledge which is absolutely wanting in Lover, who
+simply lacked the brains to be anything more than a trifler.</p>
+
+<p>A very different talent was that of their younger contemporary J.
+Sheridan Le Fanu. The author of <i>Uncle Silas</i> had plenty of solid power;
+but his art was too highly specialised. No one ever succeeded better in
+two main objects of the story-teller; first, in exciting interest, in
+stimulating curiosity by vague hints of some dreadful mystery; and then
+in concentrating attention upon a dramatic scene. It is true that,
+although an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> Irishman, he gained his chief successes with stories that
+had an English setting; but one of the best, <i>The House by the
+Churchyard</i>, describes very vividly life at Chapelizod in the days when
+this deserted little village, which lies just beyond the Ph&oelig;nix Park,
+was thickly peopled with the families of officers stationed in Dublin.
+Yet somehow one does not carry away from the reading of it any picture
+of that society; the story is so exciting that the mind has no time to
+rest on details, but hurries on from clue to clue till finally and
+literally the murder is out. Books which keep a reader on the
+tenter-hooks of conjecture must always suffer from this undue
+concentration of the interest; and in spite of cheery, inquisitive Dr.
+Toole, and the remarkable sketch of Black Dillon, the ruffianly genius
+with a reputation only recognised in the hospitals and the police-courts
+(a character admirably invented and admirably used in the plot) one can
+hardly class Le Fanu among those novelists who have left memorable
+presentments of Irish life. It is a pity; for plainly, if the man had
+cared less for sensational incident and ingenious construction, he might
+have sketched life and character with a strong brush and a kind of grim
+realism.</p>
+
+<p>Realism Lever does not aim at: he declines to be on his oath about
+anything. What he gives one, vividly enough, is national colour, not
+local colour; he is essentially Irish, just as Fielding is essentially
+English; but he aims at verisimilitude rather than veracity. The ideal
+of the novel has changed since his day. Compare him with the two ladies
+who stand out prominently among contemporary writers of Irish fiction,
+Miss Jane Barlow and Miss Emily Lawless. To begin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> with, Lever's stories
+are always concerned with the Quality; peasants only come in for an
+underplot, or in subordinate parts; and the gentry all through Ireland
+resemble one another within reasonable limits. It is different with the
+peasantry. In every part of Ireland you will find people who have never
+been ten miles away from the place of their birth, and upon whom a local
+character is unmistakably stamped. The contemporary novelists delight to
+mark these differences, these salient points of singularity; and their
+studies are chiefly of the peasantry. They settle down upon some little
+corner of the country and never stir out of it. Miss Lawless is not
+content to get you Irish character; she must show you a Clare man or an
+Arran islander, and she is at infinite pains to point out how his
+nature, even his particular actions, are influenced by the place of his
+bringing up. Lever avoids this specialisation; he prefers a stone wall
+country for his hunting scenes, but beyond that he goes no further into
+details. Again Miss Lawless both in <i>Grania</i> and in <i>Hurrish</i> makes you
+aware that young Irishmen of Hurrish's class are curiously indifferent
+to female beauty. Lever will have none of that: his Irishman must be "a
+divil with the girls," although Lever is no sentimentalist, and does not
+talk of love matches among the Irish peasantry.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest divergence of all, however, is in the temper attributed to
+the Irish. Lever makes them gay, Miss Lawless and Miss Barlow make them
+sad. No one denies that sadness is nearer the reality, but it is
+unreasonable to call Lever insincere. Naturally careless and
+lighthearted he does not trouble himself with the riddle of the painful
+world; the distress which touches him most nearly is a distress for
+debt. But if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Lever is not realistic he is natural; he follows the law
+of his nature as an artist should; he sees life through his own medium;
+and if books are to be valued as companions, not many of them are better
+company than <i>Charles O'Malley</i> or <i>Lord Kilgobbin</i>; for first and last
+Lever was always himself.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, I must own it, it does not do to read Lever soon after Miss Barlow.
+Her stories of Lisconnel and its folk have a tragic dignity wholly out
+of his range. It is a sad-coloured country she writes of, gray and
+brown; sodden brown with bog water, gray with rock cropping up through
+the fields; the only brightness is up overhead in the heavens, and even
+they are often clouded. These sombre hues, with the passing gleam of
+something above them, reflect themselves in every page of her books. She
+renders that complete harmony between the people and their surroundings
+which is only seen in working folk whose clothes are stained with the
+colour of the soil they live by, and whose lives assimilate themselves
+to its character. She has a fineness of touch, a poetry, to which no
+other Irish story-teller has attained.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, Miss Barlow has never succeeded with a regular novel: and she may
+have been only a forerunner. All great writers proceed from a school,
+and there does exist now undeniably a school of Irish literature which
+differs from Miss Edgeworth in being strongly tinged with the element of
+Celtic romance, from Carleton in possessing an admirable standard of
+style, and from Lever in aiming at a sincere and vital portraiture of
+Irish life.</p>
+
+<p class="author">1897.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_CENTURY_OF_IRISH_HUMOUR" id="A_CENTURY_OF_IRISH_HUMOUR"></a>A CENTURY OF IRISH HUMOUR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In a preface to the French translation of Sienkiewicz's works, M. de
+Wyzewa, the well-known critic, himself a Pole, makes a suggestive
+comparison between the Polish and the Russian natures. The Pole, he
+says, is quicker, wittier, more imaginative, more studious of beauty,
+less absorbed in the material world than the Russian&mdash;in a word,
+infinitely more gifted with the artistic temperament; and yet in every
+art the Russian has immeasurably outstripped the Pole. His explanation,
+if not wholly convincing, is at least suggestive. The Poles are a race
+of dreamers, and the dreamer finds his reward in himself. He does not
+seek to conquer the world with arms or with commerce, with tears or with
+laughter; neither money tempts him nor fame, and the strenuous,
+unremitting application which success demands, whether in war, business,
+or the arts, is alien to his being.</p>
+
+<p>The same observation and the same reasoning apply with equal force to
+the English and the Irish. No one who has lived in the two countries
+will deny that the Irish are apparently the more gifted race; no one can
+deny, if he has knowledge and candour, that the English have
+accomplished a great deal more, the Irish a great deal less. Nowhere is
+this more evident than in the productions of that faculty which Irishmen
+have always been reputed, and justly reputed, to possess in peculiar
+measure&mdash;the faculty of humour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> Compare Lever, who for a long time
+passed as the typical Irish humorist, with his contemporaries Thackeray
+and Dickens. The comparison is not fair, but it suggests the central
+fact that the humour of Irish literature is deficient in depth, in
+intellectual quality, or, to put it after an Irish fashion, in gravity.</p>
+
+<p>'Humorous' is a word as question-begging as 'artistic,' and he would be
+a rash man who should try to define either. But so much as this will
+readily be admitted, that humour is a habit of mind essentially complex,
+involving always a double vision&mdash;a reference from the public or normal
+standard of proportion to one that is private and personal. The humorist
+refuses to part with any atom of his own personality, he stamps it on
+whatever comes from him. "If reasons were as plenty as blackberries,"
+says Falstaff, achieving individuality by the same kind of odd
+picturesque comparison as every witty Irish peasant uses in talk, to the
+delight of himself and his hearers. But the individuality lies deeper
+than phrases: Falstaff takes his private standard into battle with him.
+There is nothing more obviously funny than the short paunchy man, let us
+not say cowardly, but disinclined to action, who finds himself engaged
+in a fight. Lever has used him a score of times (beginning with Mr.
+O'Leary in the row at a gambling-hall in Paris), and whether he runs or
+whether he fights, his efforts to do either are grotesquely laughable.
+Shakespeare puts that view of Falstaff too: Prince Hal words it. But
+Falstaff, the humorist in person, rises on the field of battle over the
+slain Percy and enunciates his philosophy of the better part of valour.
+Falstaff's estimate of honour&mdash;"that word honour" ("Who hath it? he that
+died o' Wed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>nesday. Doth he feel it?"), the "grinning honour" that Sir
+Walter Blunt wears where the Douglas left him&mdash;is necessary to complete
+the humorist's vision of a battle-piece. Lever will scarcely visit you
+with such reflections, for the humorist of Lever's type never stands
+apart and smiles; he laughs loud and in company. Still less will he give
+you one of those speeches which are the supreme achievement of this
+faculty, where the speaker's philosophy is not reasoned out liked
+Falstaff's, but revealed in a flash of the onlooker's insight. Is it
+pardonable to quote the account of Falstaff's death as the hostess
+narrates it?</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"How now, Sir John, quoth I, what, man! be of good cheer. So a'
+cried out God, God, three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid
+him a' should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to
+trouble himself with any such thoughts yet."</p></div>
+
+<p>Humour can go no farther than that terrible, illuminating phrase, which
+is laughable enough, heaven knows, but scarce likely to make you laugh.
+Contrast the humour of that with the humour of such a story as Lever
+delighted in. There were two priests dining with a regiment, we all have
+read in <i>Harry Lorrequer</i>, who chaffed a dour Ulster Protestant till he
+was the open derision of the mess. Next time they returned, the
+Protestant major was radiant with a geniality that they could not
+explain till they had to make their way out of barracks in a hurry, and
+found that the countersign (arranged by the major) was "Bloody end to
+the Pope." Told as Lever tells it, with all manner of jovial
+amplifications, that story would make anyone laugh. But it does not go
+deep. The thing is funny in too obvious a way; the mirth finds too large
+an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> outlet in laughter; it does not hang about the brain, inextricable
+from the processes of thought; it carries nothing with it beyond the
+jest. And just as tears help to an assuaging of grief, so in a sense
+laughter makes an end of mirth. Give a feeling its instinctive vent, and
+you will soon be done with it, like the child who laughs and cries
+within five minutes; check it, and it spreads inward, gaining in
+intellectual quality as it loses in physical expression. The moral is,
+that if you wish to be really humorous you must not be too funny; and
+the capital defect of most Irish humour is that its aim is too
+simple&mdash;it does not look beyond raising a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>There are brilliant exceptions in the century that lies between Sheridan
+and Mr. Bernard Shaw, between Maria Edgeworth and Miss Barlow. But
+serious art or serious thought in Ireland has always revealed itself to
+the English sooner or later as a species of sedition, and the Irish have
+with culpable folly allowed themselves to accept for characteristic
+excellences what were really the damning defects of their work&mdash;an easy
+fluency of wit, a careless spontaneity of laughter. They have taken
+Moore for a great poet, and Handy Andy for a humorist to be proud of.
+Yet an Irishman who wishes to speak dispassionately must find humour of
+a very different kind from that of <i>Handy Andy</i> or <i>Harry Lorrequer</i>
+either, to commend without reserve, as a thing that may be put forward
+to rank with what is best in other literatures.</p>
+
+<p>Taking Sheridan and Miss Edgeworth as marking the point of departure, it
+becomes obvious that one is an end, the other at a beginning. Sheridan
+belongs body and soul to the eighteenth century; Miss Edge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>worth, though
+her name sounds oddly in that context, is part and parcel of the
+romantic movement. The "postscript which ought to have been a preface"
+to <i>Waverley</i> declared, though after Scott's magnificent fashion, a real
+indebtedness. Sheridan's humour, essentially metropolitan, had found no
+use for local colour; Miss Edgeworth before Scott proved the artistic
+value that could be extracted from the characteristics of a special
+breed of people under special circumstances in a special place. Mr.
+Yeats, who, like all poets, is a most suggestive and a most misleading
+critic, has declared that modern Irish literature begins with Carleton.
+That is only true if we are determined to look in Irish literature for
+qualities that can be called Celtic&mdash;if we insist that the outlook on
+the world shall be the Catholic's or the peasant's. Miss Edgeworth had
+not a trace of the Celt&mdash;as I conceive that rather indefinite
+entity&mdash;about her; but she was as good an Irish woman as ever walked,
+and there are hundreds of Irish people of her class and creed looking at
+Irish life with kindly humorous Irish eyes, seeing pretty much what she
+saw, enjoying it as she enjoyed it, but with neither her power nor her
+will to set it down. <i>Castle Rackrent</i> is a masterpiece; and had Miss
+Edgeworth been constant to the dramatic method which she then struck out
+for herself, with all the fine reticences that it involved, her name
+might have stood high in literature. Unhappily, her too exemplary father
+repressed the artist in her, fostered the pedagogue, and in her later
+books she commits herself to an attitude in which she can moralise
+explicitly upon the ethical and social bearings of every word and
+action. The fine humour in <i>Ormond</i> is obscured by its setting; in
+<i>Castle</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> <i>Rackrent</i> the humour shines. Sir Condy and his lady we see none
+the less distinctly for seeing them through the eyes of old Thady, the
+retainer who narrates the Rackrent history; and in the process we have a
+vision of old Thady himself. Now and then the novelist reminds us of her
+presence by some extravagantly ironic touch, as when Thady describes Sir
+Condy's anger with the Government "about a place that was promised him
+and never given, after his supporting them against his conscience very
+honourably and being greatly abused for, he having the name of a great
+patriot in the country." Thady would hardly have been so ingenuous as
+that. But for the most part the humour is truly inherent in the
+situation, and you might look far for a better passage than the
+description of Sir Condy's parting with his lady. But it is better to
+illustrate from a scene perhaps less genuinely humorous, but more
+professedly so&mdash;Sir Condy's wake. Miss Edgeworth does not dwell on the
+broad farce of the entertainment; she does not make Thady eloquent over
+the whisky that was drunk and the fighting that began and so forth, as
+Lever or Carleton would certainly have been inclined to do. She fixes on
+the central comedy of the situation, Sir Condy's innocent vanity and its
+pitiable disappointment&mdash;is it necessary to recall that he had arranged
+for the wake himself, because he always wanted to see his own funeral?
+Poor Sir Condy!&mdash;even Thady, who was in the secret, had forgotten all
+about him, when he was startled by the sound of his master's voice from
+under the greatcoats thrown all atop.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"'Thady,' says he, 'I've had enough of this; I'm smothering and
+can't hear a word of all they're saying of the deceased.' 'God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+bless you, and lie still and quiet a bit longer,' says I, 'for my
+sister's afraid of ghosts, and would die on the spot with fright if
+she was to see you come to life all on a sudden this way without
+the least preparation.' So he lays him still, though well-nigh
+stifled, and I made haste to tell the secret of the joke,
+whispering to one and t'other, and there was a great surprise, but
+not so great as he had laid out there would. 'And aren't we to have
+the pipes and tobacco after coming so far to-night?' said some one;
+but they were all well enough pleased when his honour got up to
+drink with them, and sent for more spirits from a shebeen house
+where they very civilly let him have it upon credit. So the night
+passed off very merrily; but to my mind Sir Condy was rather upon
+the sad order in the midst of it all, not finding there had been
+such great talk about himself after his death as that he had always
+expected to hear."</p></div>
+
+<p>In the end Sir Condy died, not by special arrangement. "He had but a
+poor funeral after all," is Thady's remark; and you see with the kindly
+double vision of the humorist Thady's sincere regret for the
+circumstance that would most have afflicted the deceased, as well as the
+more obviously comic side of Thady's comment and Sir Condy's lifelong
+aspiration. Indeed, the whole narrative is shot with many meanings, and
+one never turns to it without a renewed faculty of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>If it were necessary to compare true humour with the make-believe, a
+comparison might be drawn between Thady and the servant in Lady Morgan's
+novel <i>O'Donnell</i>. Rory is the stage Irishman in all his commonest
+attitudes. But it is better to go straight on, and concern ourselves
+solely with the work of real literary quality, and Carleton falls next
+to be considered.</p>
+
+<p>Of genius with inadequate equipment it is always difficult to speak.
+Carleton is the nearest thing to Burns that we have to show; and his
+faults, almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> insuperable to the ordinary reader, are the faults which
+Burns seldom failed to display when writing in English. But to Burns
+there was given an instrument perfected by long centuries of use&mdash;the
+Scotch vernacular song and ballad; Carleton had to make his own, and the
+genius for form was lacking in him. Some day there may come a man of
+pure Irish race who will be to Carleton what Burns was to Ferguson, and
+then Ireland will have what it lacks; moreover, in the light of his
+achievement we shall see better what the pioneer accomplished. Every
+gift that Carleton had&mdash;and pathos and humour, things complementary to
+each other, he possessed in profusion&mdash;every gift is obscured by faulty
+technique. Nearly every trait is overcharged; for instance, in his story
+of the <i>Midnight Mass</i> he rings the changes interminably upon the old
+business of the wonderful medicine in the vagrants' blessed horn that
+had a strong odour of whisky; but what an admirably humorous figure is
+this same Darby O'More! Out of the <i>Poor Scholar</i> alone, that inchoate
+masterpiece, you could illustrate a dozen phases of Carleton's mirth,
+beginning with the famous sermon where the priest so artfully wheedles
+and coaxes his congregation into generosity towards the boy who is going
+out on the world, and all the while unconsciously displays his own
+laughable and lovable weaknesses. There you have the double vision, that
+helps to laugh with the priest, and to laugh at him in the same breath,
+as unmistakably as in the strange scene of the famine days where the
+party of mowers find Jimmy sick of the fever by the wayside and "schame
+a day" from their employer to build him a rough shelter. That whole
+chapter, describing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> indefatigable industry with which they labour
+on the voluntary task, their glee in the truantry from the labour for
+which they are paid, their casuistry over the theft of milk for the
+pious purpose of keeping the poor lad alive, the odd blending of
+cowardice and magnanimity in their terror of the sickness and in their
+constant care that some one should at least be always in earshot of the
+boy, ready to pass in to him on a long-handed shovel what food they
+could scrape up, their supple ingenuity in deceiving the pompous
+landlord who comes to oversee their work,&mdash;all that is the completest
+study in existence of Irish character as it came to be under the system
+of absolute dependence. There is nothing so just as true humour, for by
+the law of its being it sees inevitably two sides; and this strange
+compound of vices and virtues, so rich in all the softer qualities, so
+lacking in all the harder ones, stands there in Carleton's pages,
+neither condemned nor justified, but seen and understood with a kindly
+insight. Carleton is the document of documents for Ireland in the years
+before the famine, preserving a record of conditions material and
+spiritual, which happily have largely ceased to exist, yet operate
+indefinitely as causes among us, producing eternal though eternally
+modifiable effects.</p>
+
+<p>But, for the things in human nature that are neither of yesterday,
+to-day, nor to-morrow, but unchangeable, he has the humorist's true
+touch. When the poor scholar is departing, and has actually torn himself
+away from home, his mother runs after him with a last token&mdash;a small
+bottle of holy water. "Jimmy, alanna," said she, "here's this an' carry
+it about you&mdash;it will keep evil from you; an' be sure to take good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> care
+of the written characther you got from the priest an' Squire Benson;
+an', darlin', don't be lookin' too often at the cuff o' your coat, for
+feard the people might get a notion that you have the banknotes sewed in
+it. An', Jimmy agra, don't be too lavish upon their Munsther crame; they
+say 'tis apt to give people the ague. Kiss me agin, agra, an' the
+heavens above keep you safe and well till we see you once more."</p>
+
+<p>Through all that catalogue of precautions, divine and human, one feels
+the mood between tears and laughter of the man who set it down. But I
+think you only come to the truth about Carleton in the last scene of
+all, when Jimmy returns to his home, a priest. Nothing could be more
+stilted, more laboured, than the pages which attempt to render his
+emotions and his words, till there comes the revealing touch. His mother
+at sight of him, returned unlooked-for after the long absence, loses for
+a moment the possession of her faculties, and cannot be restored. At
+last, "I will speak to her," said Jimmy, "in Irish; it will go directly
+to her heart." And it does.</p>
+
+<p>Carleton never could speak to us in Irish; the English was still a
+strange tongue on his lips and in the ears of those he lived among; and
+his work comes down distracted between the two languages, imperfect and
+halting, only with flashes of true and living speech.</p>
+
+<p>When you come to Lever, it is a very different story. Lever was at no
+lack for utterance; nobody was ever more voluble, no one ever less
+inclined to sit and bite his pen, waiting for the one and only word.
+Good or bad, he could be trusted to rattle on; and, as Trollope said, if
+you pulled him out of bed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> demanded something witty, he would flash
+it at you before he was half awake. Some people are born with the
+perilous gift of improvisation; and the best that can be said for Lever
+is that he is the nearest equivalent in Irish literature, or in English
+either, to the marvellous faculty of D'Artagnan's creator. He has the
+same exuberance, the same inexhaustible supply of animal spirits, of
+invention that is always spirited, of wit that goes off like fireworks.
+He delighted a whole generation of readers, and one reader at least in
+this generation he still delights; but I own that to enjoy him you must
+have mastered the art of skipping. Whether you take him in his earlier
+manner, in the "Charles O'Malley" vein of adventure, fox-hunting,
+steeple-chasing, Peninsular fighting, or in his later more intellectual
+studies of shady financiers, needy political adventurers, and the whole
+generation of usurers and blacklegs, he is always good; but alas and
+alas, he is never good enough. His work is rotten with the disease of
+anecdote; instead of that laborious concentration on a single character
+which is necessary for any kind of creative work, but above all for
+humorous creation, he presents you with a sketch, a passing glimpse, and
+when you look to see the suggestion followed out he is off at score with
+a story. In the first chapter of <i>Davenport Dunn</i>, for instance, there
+is an Irish gentleman on the Continent, a pork-butcher making his first
+experience of Italy, hit off to the life. But a silhouette&mdash;and a very
+funny silhouette&mdash;is all that we get of Mr. O'Reilly, and the figures
+over whom Lever had taken trouble&mdash;for in that work Lever did take
+trouble&mdash;are not seen with humour. Directly he began to think, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+humour left him; it is as if he had been funny in watertight
+compartments. And perhaps that is why, here as elsewhere, he shrank from
+the necessary concentration of thought.</p>
+
+<p>There is always a temptation to hold a brief for Lever, because he has
+been most unjustly censured by Irishmen, even in so august and impartial
+a court as the <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>, as if he had traduced
+his countrymen. Did Thackeray, then, malign the English? The only charge
+that may fairly be brought against him is the one that cannot be
+rebutted&mdash;the charge of superficiality and of scamped work, of a humour
+that only plays over the surface of things&mdash;a humour which sees only the
+comic side that anybody might see. And because I cannot defend him, I
+say no more. Lever is certainly not a great humorist, but he is
+delightful company.</p>
+
+<p>One may mention in passing the excursions into broad comedy of another
+brilliant Irishman&mdash;Le Fanu's short stories in the <i>Purcell Papers</i>,
+such as the <i>Quare Gander</i>, or <i>Billy Molowney's Taste of Love and
+Glory</i>. These are good examples of a particular literary type&mdash;the
+humorous anecdote&mdash;in which Irish humour has always been fertile, and of
+which the <i>ne plus ultra</i> is Sir Samuel Ferguson's magnificent squib in
+Blackwood, <i>Father Tom and the Pope</i>. Everybody knows the merits of that
+story, its inexhaustible fertility of comparison, its dialectic
+ingenuity, its jovialty, its drollery, its Rabelaisian laughter. But,
+after all, the highest type of humour is humour applying itself to the
+facts of life, and this is burlesque humour squandering itself in riot
+upon a delectable fiction. Humour is a great deal more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> than a
+plaything; it is a force, a weapon&mdash;at once sword and shield. If there
+is to be an art of literature in Ireland that can be called national, it
+cannot afford to devote humour solely to the production of trifles.
+<i>Father Tom</i> is a trifle, a splendid toy; and what is more, a trifle
+wrought in a moment of ease by perhaps the most serious and
+conscientious artist that ever made a contribution to the small body of
+real Irish literature in the tongue that is now native to the majority
+of Irishmen.</p>
+
+<p>Of contemporaries, with one exception, I do not propose to speak at any
+length, nor can I hope that my review will be complete. There is first
+and foremost Miss Barlow, a lady whose work is so gentle, so unassuming,
+that one hears little of it in the rush and flare of these strident
+times, but who will be heard and listened to with fresh emotion as the
+stream is heard when the scream and rattle of a railway train have
+passed away into silence. Is she a humorist? Not in the sense of
+provoking laughter&mdash;and yet the things that she sees and loves and
+dwells on would be unbearable if they were not seen through a delicate
+mist of mirth. The daily life of people at continual handgrips with
+starvation, their little points of honour, their little questions of
+precedence, the infinite generosity that concerns itself with the
+expenditure of six-pence, the odd shifts they resort to that a gift may
+not have the appearance of charity,&mdash;all these are set down with a
+tenderness of laughter that is peculiarly and distinctively Irish.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, though we may find a finer quality of humour in those writers who
+do not seek to raise a laugh&mdash;for instance, the subtle pervasive humour
+in Mr. Yeats's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> <i>Celtic Twilight</i>&mdash;still there are few greater
+attractions than that of open healthy laughter of the contagious sort;
+and it would be black ingratitude not to pay tribute to the authoresses
+of <i>Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.</i>&mdash;a book that no decorous person
+can read with comfort in a railway carriage. These ladies have the
+keenest eye for the obvious humours of Irish life, they have abundance
+of animal spirits, and they have that knack at fluent description
+embroidered with a wealth of picturesque details that is shared by
+hundreds of peasants in Ireland, but is very rare indeed on the printed
+page. And, mingling with the broad farce there is a deal of excellent
+comedy&mdash;for instance, in the person of old Mrs. Knox of Aussolas. But
+there is the same point to insist on&mdash;and since these witty and
+delightful ladies have already the applause of all the world one insists
+less unwillingly&mdash;this kind of thing, admirable as it is, will not
+redeem Irish humour from the reproach of trifling. But in the novel,
+<i>The Real Charlotte</i>, there is humour as grim almost as Swift's&mdash;and as
+completely un-English; it is a humour which assuredly stirs more
+faculties than the simple one of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>There is indeed a literature which, if not always exactly humorous, is
+closely allied to it&mdash;the literature of satire and invective; and in
+this Ireland has always been prolific. In the days of the old kings the
+order of bards had grown so numerous, that they comprised a third of the
+whole population, and they devoted themselves with such talent and zeal
+to the task of invective that no man could live in peace, and the
+country cried out against them, and there was talk of suppressing the
+whole order. The king spared them on con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>dition that they would mend
+their manners. We have those bards still, but nowadays we call them
+politicians and journalists; and frankly I think we are ripe for another
+intervention, if only in the interests of literature. So much good
+talent goes to waste in bad words; and, moreover, an observance of the
+decencies is always salutary for style. And it seems that as the years
+have gone on, humour has diminished in Irish politics, while bad humour
+has increased; and therefore I leave alone any attempt to survey the
+humour of the orators, though Curran tempts one at the beginning and Mr.
+Healy at the close. Of purely literary satire there has been little
+enough, apart from its emergence in the novel; but there is one example
+which deserves to be recalled. I have never professed enthusiasm for
+Thomas Moore, but I am far indeed from agreeing with a recent critic who
+would claim literary rank for him rather in virtue of the <i>Fudge Family</i>
+than of the Irish Melodies. That satire does not seem to get beyond
+brilliancy; it is very clever, and not much more. Still, there are
+passages in it which cannot be read without enjoyment; and one quotation
+may be permitted, since it puts with perfect distinctness what it is
+always permissible to put&mdash;the English case against Ireland.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I'm a plain man who speak the truth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And trust you'll think me not uncivil<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I declare that from my youth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I've wished your country at the devil.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor can I doubt indeed from all<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I've heard of your high patriot fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From every word your lips let fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That you most truly wish the same.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It plagues one's life out; thirty years<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Have I had dinning in my ears&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ireland wants this and that and t'other;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And to this hour one nothing hears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the same vile eternal bother.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While of those countless things she wanted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thank God, but little has been granted.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The list of writers of humorous verse in Ireland is a long one, but a
+catalogue of ephemera. Even Father Prout at this time of day is little
+more than a dried specimen labelled for reference, or at most preserved
+in vitality by the immortal <i>Groves of Blarney</i>. But neither that work,
+nor even <i>The Night before Larry was stretched</i>, nor Le Fanu's ballad of
+<i>Shemus O'Brien</i>, can rank altogether as literature. About the humorous
+song I need only say that, so far as my experience goes, there is one,
+and one only, which a person with no taste for music and some taste for
+literature can hear frequently with pleasure, and that song of course is
+<i>Father O'Flynn</i>. To recall the delightful ingenuity and the nimble wit
+shown by another Irishman of the same family in the <i>Hawarden Horace</i>,
+and in a lesser degree by Mr. Godley in his <i>Musa Frivola</i>, leads
+naturally to the inquiry why humour from Aristophanes to Carlyle has
+always preferred the side of reaction&mdash;a question that would need an
+essay, or a volume, all to itself.</p>
+
+<p>But the central question is after all why in a race where humour is so
+preponderant in the racial temperament does so little of the element
+crystallise itself in literature. Humour ranks with the water power as
+one of the great undeveloped resources of the country. Something indeed
+has been done in the past with the river of laughter that almost every
+Irish person has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> flowing in his heart; but infinitely more might be
+done if these rivers were put in harness.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, take away two Irish names from the field of modern comedy in the
+English language written during the nineteenth century, and you have
+uncommonly little for which literary merit can be claimed. The quality
+of Oscar Wilde's is scarcely disputed. There is the more reason to dwell
+on Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays, because they have not even in the twentieth
+century been fully accepted by that queer folk, the theatre-going
+public. But I never yet heard of anyone who saw <i>You Never can Tell</i>,
+and was not amused by it. That was a farce, no doubt, but a farce which
+appealed to emotions less elementary than those which are touched by the
+spectacle of a man sitting down by accident on his hat; it was a farce
+of intellectual absurdities, of grotesque situations arising out of
+perversities of character and opinion; a farce that you could laugh at
+without a loss of self-respect. But it is rather by his comedies than by
+his farces that Mr. Shaw should be judged. If they are not popular, it
+is for a very good reason: Mr. Shaw's humour is too serious. His humour
+is a strong solvent, and one of the many things about which this
+humorist is in deadly earnest is the fetish worship of tradition. To
+that he persists in applying&mdash;in <i>Candida</i> as in half a dozen other
+plays&mdash;the ordeal by laughter&mdash;an ordeal which every human institution
+is bound to face. <i>Candida</i> will not only make people laugh, it will
+make them think; and it is not easy to induce the public to think after
+dinner on unaccustomed lines. They will laugh when they have been used
+to laugh, weep when they have been used to weep; but if you ask them to
+laugh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> when they expect to weep, or <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>, the public will resent
+the proceeding. The original humorist, like every other original artist,
+has got slowly and laboriously to convert his public before he can
+convince them of his right to find tears and laughter where he can.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever Mr. Shaw touches, whether it be the half-hysterical impulse
+that sometimes passes current for heroism, as in <i>Arms and the Man</i>, or,
+as in the <i>Devil's Disciple</i>, the conventional picturesqueness of a Don
+Juan&mdash;that maker of laws, breaker of hearts, so familiar with the
+limelight, so unused to the illumination by laughter, who finds himself
+in the long run deplorably stigmatised as a saint&mdash;there is a flood of
+light let in upon all manner of traditional poses, literary
+insincerities that have crept into life. There are few things of more
+value in a commonwealth than such a searching faculty of laughter. Like
+Sheridan, Mr. Shaw lives in England, and uses his comic gift for the
+most part on subjects suggested to him by English conditions of life,
+but with a strength of intellectual purpose that Sheridan never
+possessed. Irishmen may wish that he found his material in Ireland. But
+an artist must take what his hand finds, and there is no work in the
+world more full of the Scottish spirit or the Scottish humour than
+Carlyle's <i>French Revolution</i>. If it be asked whether Mr. Shaw's humour
+is typically Irish, I must reply by another question: "Could his plays
+have conceivably been written by any but an Irishman?"</p>
+
+<p>Is there, in fact, a distinctively Irish humour? In a sense, yes, no
+doubt, just as the English humour is of a different quality from the
+Greek or the French. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> nobody wants to pin down English humour to the
+formula of a definition; no one wants to say, Thus far shalt thou go,
+and beyond that shalt cease to be English. Moreover, a leading
+characteristic of the Irish type is just its variety&mdash;its continual
+deviation from the normal. How, then, to find a description that will
+apply to a certain quality of mind throughout a variable race; that
+quality being in its essence the most complete expression of an
+individuality, in its difference from other individualities, since a
+man's humour is the most individual thing about him? Description is
+perhaps more possible than definition. One may say that the Irish humour
+is kindly and lavish; that it tends to express itself in an exuberance
+of phrase, a wild riot of comparisons; that it amplifies rather than
+retrenches, finding its effects by an accumulation of traits, and not by
+a concentration. The vernacular Irish literature is there to prove that
+Irish fancy gives too much rather than too little. One may observe,
+again, that a nation laughs habitually over its besetting weakness; and
+if the French find their mirth by preference in dubious adventures, it
+cannot be denied that much Irish humour has a pronounced alcoholic
+flavour. But it is better neither to define nor to describe; there is
+more harmful misunderstanding caused by setting down this or that
+quality, this or that person, as typically French, typically English,
+typically Irish, than by any other fallacy; and we Irish have suffered
+peculiarly by the notion that the typical Irishman is the funny man of
+the empire. What I would permit myself to assert is, first, that the
+truest humour is not just the light mirth that comes easily from the
+lips&mdash;that, in the hackneyed phrase, bubbles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> over spontaneously&mdash;but is
+the expression of deep feeling and deep thought, made possible by deep
+study of the means to express it; and secondly, that literature, which
+through the earlier part of last century never received in Ireland the
+laborious brooding care without which no considerable work of art is
+possible, now receives increasingly the artist's labour; and
+consequently that among our later humorists we find a faculty of mirth
+that lies deeper, reaches farther, judges more subtly, calls into light
+a wider complex of relations. After all, laughter is the most
+distinctive faculty of man; and I submit that, so far as literature
+shows, we Irish can better afford to be judged by our laughter now than
+a century ago.</p>
+
+<p class="author">1901.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LITERATURE_AMONG_THE_ILLITERATES" id="LITERATURE_AMONG_THE_ILLITERATES"></a>LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES</h2>
+
+<h2>I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SHANACHY</h3>
+
+
+<p>There is nothing better known about Ireland than this fact: that
+illiteracy is more frequent among the Irish Catholic peasantry than in
+any other class of the British population; and that especially upon the
+Irish-speaking peasant does the stigma lie. Yet it is, perhaps, as well
+to inquire a little more precisely what is meant by an illiterate. If to
+be literate is to possess a knowledge of the language, literature, and
+historical traditions of a man's own country&mdash;and this is no very
+unreasonable application of the word&mdash;then this Irish-speaking peasantry
+has a better claim to the title than can be shown by most bodies of men.
+I have heard the existence of an Irish literature denied by a roomful of
+prosperous educated gentlemen; and, within a week, I have heard, in the
+same county, the classics of that literature recited by an Irish peasant
+who could neither write nor read. On which part should the stigma of
+illiteracy set the uglier brand?</p>
+
+<p>The Gaelic revival sends many of us to school in Irish-speaking
+districts, and, if it did nothing else, at least it would have sent us
+to school in pleasant places among the most lovable preceptors. It was a
+blessed change from London to a valley among hills that look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> over the
+Atlantic, with its brown stream tearing down among boulders, and its
+heathy banks, where the keen fragrance of bog-myrtle rose as you brushed
+through in the morning on your way to the head of a pool. Here was
+indeed a desirable academy, and my preceptor matched it. A big,
+loose-jointed old man, rough, brownish-gray all over, clothes, hair, and
+face; his cheeks were half-hidden by the traditional close-cropped
+whisker, and the rest was an ill-shorn stubble. Traditional, too, was
+the small, deep-set, blue eye, the large, kindly mouth, uttering English
+with a soft brogue, which, as is always the case among those whose real
+tongue is Irish, had no trace of vulgarity. Indeed, it would have been
+strange that vulgarity of any sort should show in one who had perfect
+manners, and the instinct of a scholar, for this preceptor was not even
+technically illiterate. He could read and write English, and Irish, too,
+which is by no means so common; and I have not often seen a man happier
+than he was over Douglas Hyde's collection of Connacht love-songs, which
+I had fortunately brought with me. But his main interest was in
+history&mdash;that history which had been rigorously excluded from his school
+training, the history of Ireland. I would go on ahead to fish a pool,
+and leave him poring over Hyde's book; but when he picked me up,
+conversation went on where it broke off&mdash;somewhere among the fortunes of
+Desmonds and Burkes, O'Neills and O'Donnells. And when one had hooked a
+large sea-trout, on a singularly bad day, in a place where no sea-trout
+was expected, it was a little disappointing to find that Charlie's only
+remark, as he swept the net under my capture, was: "The Clancartys was
+great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> men too. Is there any of them living?" The scholar in him had
+completely got the better of the sportsman.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond his historic lore (which was really considerable, and by no means
+inaccurate) he had many songs by heart, some of them made by Carolan,
+some by nameless poets, written in the Irish which is spoken to-day. I
+wrote down a couple of Charlie's lyrics which had evidently a local
+origin; but what I sought was one of the Shanachies who carried in his
+memory the classic literature of Ireland, the epics or ballads of an
+older day. Charlie was familiar, of course, with the matter of this
+"Ossianic" literature, as we all are, for example, with the story of
+Ulysses. He knew how Oisin dared to go with a fairy woman to her own
+land; how he returned in defiance of her warning; how he found himself
+lonely and broken in a changed land; and how, in the end, he gave in to
+the teaching of St. Patrick ("Sure how would he stand up against it?"
+said Charlie), and was converted to Christ. But all the mass of rhymed
+verse which relates the dialogues between Oisin and Patrick, the tales
+of Finn and his heroes which Oisin told to the Saint, the fierce answers
+with which the old warrior met the Gospel arguments&mdash;all this was only
+vaguely familiar to him. I was looking for a man who had it by heart.</p>
+
+<p>The search for the repositories of this knowledge leads sometimes into
+strange contrasts. One friend of mine lay stretched for long hours on
+top of a roof of sticks and peat-scraws which was propped against the
+wall of a ruined cabin, while within the evicted tenant, still clinging
+to his home as life clings to the shattered body, lay bedridden on a
+lair of rushes, and chanted the deeds of heroes; his voice issuing
+through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> the vent in the roof, at once window and chimney, from the
+kennel in which was neither room nor light for a man to sit and record
+the verses. My own chance was luckier and happier. It came on a day when
+a party of us had set out in quest of a remote mountain lough. Our way
+led along the river, and as we drove up to where the valley contracted,
+and the tillage land decreased in extent and fertility, the type of the
+people changed. They were Celts and Catholics, evident to the least
+practised eye. A little further still from civilisation we reached the
+fringe that was Gaelic not merely in blood; the kindly woman whose
+cottage warmed and sheltered us when we returned half-foundered from
+plunging through bogs was an Irish speaker. She had no songs herself,
+but if I wanted them her neighbour, James Kelly, was the best of
+company, and would keep me listening the length of a night.</p>
+
+<p>I pushed my bicycle through a drizzle of misty rain up the road over
+mountainous moor, before I saw his cottage standing trim and white under
+its thatch in a screen of trees, and as I was nearing it, the boy with
+me showed me James down in a hollow, filling a barrow with turf. He
+stopped work as I came down, and called off his dog, looking at me
+curiously enough, for, indeed, strangers were a rarity in that spot,
+clean off the tourist track, and away from any thoroughfare. One's
+presence had to be explained out of hand, and I told him exactly why I
+had come. He looked surprised and perhaps a little pleased, that his
+learning should draw students. But he made no pretence of ignorance; the
+only question was, how he could help me. Did I want songs of the modern
+kind, or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> older songs of Finn Mac-Cool? If it was the latter, it
+seemed I was not well able to manage the common talk, and these songs
+were written in "very hard Irish, full of ould strong words."</p>
+
+<p>I should like to send the literary Irishmen of my acquaintance one by
+one to converse with James Kelly as a salutary discipline. He was
+perfectly courteous, but through his courtesy there pierced a kind of
+toleration that carried home to one's mind a profound conviction of
+ignorance. People talk about the servility of the Irish peasant. Here
+was a man who professed his inability to read or write, but stood
+perfectly secure in his sense of superior education. His respect for me
+grew evidently when he found me familiar with the details of more
+stories than he expected. I was raised to the level of a hopeful pupil.
+They had been put into English, I told him. "Oh, ay, they would be, in a
+sort of a way," said James, with a fine scorn. Soon we broke new ground,
+for James had by heart not only the Fenian or Ossianic cycle, but also
+the older Sagas of Cuchulain. He confused the cycles, it is true, taking
+the Red Branch heroes for contemporaries of the Fianna, which is much as
+if one should make Heracles meet Odysseus or Achilles in battle; but he
+had these earlier legends by heart, a rare acquirement among the
+Shanachies of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Here then was a type of the Irish illiterate. A man somewhere between
+fifty and sixty, at a guess; of middle height, spare and well-knit,
+high-nosed, fine-featured, keen-eyed; standing there on his own ground,
+courteous and even respectful, yet consciously a scholar; one who had
+travelled too&mdash;had worked in England and Scotland, and could tell me
+that the High<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>land Gaelic was far nearer to the language of the old days
+than the Irish of to-day; finally, one who could recite without apparent
+effort long narrative poems in a dead literary dialect. When I find an
+English workman who can stand up and repeat the works of Chaucer by
+heart, then and not till then I shall see an equivalent for James Kelly.</p>
+
+<p>And yet it would be a different thing entirely. Chaucer has never
+survived in oral tradition. But in the West of Donegal, whence James
+Kelly's father emigrated to where I found his son, every old person had
+this literature in mind, and my friend was no exception. It is among the
+younger generation, who have been taught in the National Schools (surely
+the most ironic of all titles), that the language and the history of the
+nation are dying out. Yet that is changing. For instance, James Kelly's
+son reads and writes Irish, and on another day helped me to note down
+some of his father's lore.</p>
+
+<p>For it was late when I came first to the house, and though the Shanachie
+pressed me (not knowing even my name) to stay the night, I had to depart
+for that day, after I had heard him recite in the traditional chant some
+staves of an Ossianic lay, and sing to the traditional air Carolan's
+famous lyric, "The Lord of Mayo." We drank a glass of whisky from my
+flask, a cup of tea that his wife made; and as we went into the house he
+asked a favour in a whisper. It was that I should eat plenty of his good
+woman's butter. He escorted me a good way over the hill, for, said he,
+when I had come that far to see him, it was the least that he should put
+me a piece on my road, and he exhorted me to come again for "a good
+crack<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> together." And if I deferred visiting him for another year that
+was largely because I did not like to face again this illiterate without
+acquiring a little more knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>What came of my second visit must be written in another paper. But here,
+let it be understood this is no exceptional case. In every three or four
+parishes along the Western seaboard and for twenty miles inland, from
+Donegal to Kerry, there is the like of James Kelly to be found. It may
+be that in another fifty years not one of these Shanachies will linger;
+education will have made a clean sweep of illiteracy. And yet again, it
+may be that by that time, not only in the Western baronies but through
+the length and breadth of Ireland, both song and story and legend will
+be living again on the lips and in the hearts of the people. <i>Go leigidh
+Dia sin.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES</h2>
+
+<h2>II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LIFE OF A SONG</h3>
+
+
+<p>There was a great contention some years ago fought out in a law court
+between the British Museum and the Royal Irish Academy, for the custody
+of certain treasure trove, gold vessels and ornaments disinterred on an
+Irish beach. The treasures went back, as was only right, to Ireland,
+where is a rich storehouse of such things, for the soil has been dug
+over in search for the material relics of ancient art. Yet little heed
+has been paid to treasures of far greater worth and interest, harder to
+sell, it is true, but easier to come by&mdash;the old songs and stories which
+linger in oral tradition or in old manuscripts handed down from peasant
+to peasant. Only within the last few years did the Irish suddenly awake
+to a consciousness that the authentic symbols, or, rather, the
+indisputable proofs of the national existence so dear to them, were
+slipping out of their hands. So far had the heritage perished, so ill
+had the tradition been maintained, that when they turned to revive their
+expiring language and literature, the first question asked was, "What is
+it you would revive? Was there ever a literature in Irish or merely a
+collection of ridiculous rhodomontade? Is there a language, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> does
+there survive merely a debased jargon, employed by ignorant peasants
+among themselves, and chiefly useful, like a thieves' lingo, to baffle
+the police?"</p>
+
+<p>These were the questions put, and not one in a thousand of Irish
+Nationalists could give an answer according to knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Now, matters are changed. The books that were available in print have
+been read; the work of poets extant only in manuscript has been printed
+and widely circulated; the language is studied with zeal, and not in
+Ireland only, but wherever Irishmen are gathered. Yet nothing has so
+strongly moved me to believe that we cherish the living rather than pay
+funeral honours to the dead, as certain hours spent with a peasant who
+could neither write nor read.</p>
+
+<p>The life of a song&mdash;poets have said it again and again in immortal
+verse&mdash;is of all lives the most enduring. Kingdoms pass, buildings
+crumble, but the work which a man has fashioned "out of a mouthful of
+air" defies the centuries; it keeps its shape and its quivering
+substance. Strongest of all such lives are perhaps those where "the
+mouthful of air" is left by the singer mere air, and no more, unfixed on
+paper or parchment; when the song goes from mouth to mouth, altering its
+contours it may be, but unchanged in essence, though coloured by its
+immediate surroundings as a flower fits itself to each soil. Such was
+the song that I had the chance to write down, from lips to which it came
+through who knows how many generations.</p>
+
+<p>The story which it tells is among the finest in that great repertory of
+legend which, since Ireland began to take count of her own possessions,
+has become fami<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>liar to the world. It is the theme of a play in the last
+book published by the chief of modern Irish poets, Mr. W. B. Yeats. But
+since he tells the story in a way of his own, and since it is none too
+well known even in those parts of Ireland where its hero's name is a
+proverb (<i>Comh l&agrave;idir le Cuchulain</i>, Strong as Cuchulain), it may be
+well to set out the legend here.</p>
+
+<p>Cuchulain, the Achilles of Irish epic, was famous from the day in
+boyhood when he got his name by killing, bare-handed, the smith's fierce
+watchdog that would have torn him. The ransom for the killing was laid
+on by the boy himself, and it was that he should watch Culann's house
+for a year and a day till a pup should be grown to take the place of the
+slain dog. So he came to be called C&uacute; Chulain, Culann's Hound, and by
+that name he was known when, as a young champion, he set out for the
+Isle of Skye, where the warrior-witch Sgathach (from whom the island is
+called) taught the crowning feats of arms to all young heroes who could
+pass through the ordeals she laid upon them.</p>
+
+<p>There was no trial that Cuchulain could not support, and the fame of him
+drew on a combat with another Amazonian warrior, Aoif&eacute;, who, in the
+story that I heard, was Sgathach's daughter, though Lady Gregory in her
+fine book <i>Cuchulain of Muirthemne</i> gives another version. But, at any
+rate, Cuchulain defeated Aoif&eacute;, and she gave love to her
+conqueror&mdash;whose passion for the fierce queen was not strong enough to
+keep him from Ireland. When he made ready to go, the woman warrior told
+him that a child was to be born of their embraces, and she asked what
+should be done with it. "If it be a girl, keep it," said Cuchu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>lain,
+"but if a boy, wait till his thumb can fill this ring"&mdash;and he gave her
+the circlet&mdash;"then send him to me." So he departed, leaving wrath behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The child born was a son, and Aoif&eacute; reared him and taught him all feats
+of arms that could be taught to a mortal, except one only, and of that
+feat only Cuchulain was master: "the way," said James Kelly, prefacing
+his ballad with such an explanation as I am now giving, "there would be
+none could kill him but his own father." And when the boy had learnt all
+and was the perfect warrior, Aoif&eacute; sent him out to Ireland under a
+pledge to refuse his name to any that should ask it, well knowing how
+the wardens of the coast would stop him on the shore. It fell out as she
+purposed. The young Connlaoch defeated champion after champion till
+Cuchulain himself went down, and was recognised by his son. But the
+pledge tied Connlaoch's tongue, and only when he lay dying, slain by the
+magic throw which Aoif&eacute; had withheld from his knowledge, could he reveal
+himself to his father, the great and childless hero, whose lament for
+his lost son is written in the song that I set out to secure, on a day
+of sun and rain, last summer, when great soft clouds drove full sail
+through the moist atmosphere, their shadows sweeping over brown moor and
+green valley, while far away towards the sea, mountain peaks rose purple
+and amethystine in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Twice before this I had been in the little cottage on Cark Mountain;
+first, when the chance rumour heard in a neighbouring cabin of a man
+with countless songs and stories sent me off to investigate; and for a
+second time, when I had come back with a slightly better knowledge of
+Gaelic and had taken down a few verses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> of the poem. These, sent to an
+Irish scholar, had sufficed to identify the ballad with one printed in
+Miss Brooke's <i>Reliques of Irish Poetry</i>, a characteristic production of
+the latter days of the eighteenth century, when Macpherson, with his
+adaptation of the Ossianic poems, and Bishop Percy, with his gathering
+of old English ballads, had set a fashion soon to culminate in Scott's
+great achievement.</p>
+
+<p>They proved, however, not identity only but difference; and the ballad
+as I have it in full with its nineteen quatrains, is even less like the
+longer version given by O'Halloran to Miss Brooke, than the opening
+stanzas suggested. In them the variations were mainly textual, and when
+I read out O'Halloran's version to James Kelly, his son, a keen
+listener, declared a preference for the printed text. But the old man
+was of another mind. "It's the same song," he said, "sure enough, but
+there's things changed in it, and I know rightly about them. Some one
+was giving it the way it would be easier to understand, leaving out the
+old hard words. And I did that myself once or twice the last day you
+were here, and I was vexed after, when I would be thinking about it. And
+this day you will be to take down what I say, let you understand it or
+not; just word for word, the right way it should be spoken."</p>
+
+<p>There you have in a glimpse the custodian of legend. The man was
+illiterate, technically, but he knew by instinct, as his ancestors had
+known before him, that he was the guardian of the life of a song; he
+recognised that it was a scripture which he had no right to mutilate or
+alter. He had to the full that respect for a work of literature which is
+the best indication of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> a scholar, and for him at least the line was
+unbroken from the Ireland of heroes and minstrels to the hour when he
+chanted over the poem that some bard in the remote ages had fashioned.</p>
+
+<p>Little wonder, too, for his own way of life was close to that of the
+Middle Ages. Below in the valley, where the Swilly River debouches into
+its sea lough, was a prosperous little town with banks and railway; but
+to reach the bleak brown moor where James Kelly's house stood, you must
+climb by one of two roads, each so rough and steep that a bicycle cannot
+be ridden down them. Here, in a little screen of scrub alders, stands
+the cottage, where three generations of the family live together. His
+own home consisted simply of two rooms with no upper story, but it was
+trim and comfortable, the dresser well filled, and the big pot over the
+turf fire gave out a prosperous steam. The son, a grown man, waited from
+his turf-cutting to help in our discussion; the wife was abroad that
+day, and one daughter was just starting for market with a web of
+homespun cloth which they had dressed in the household. The spinning
+wheel stood in the corner; but another girl was busy near the fire with
+more modern work, hemming shirts with a machine for a Derry factory, and
+the bleached linen was the only thing in the house which had not taken
+on the brown tints of peat smoke.</p>
+
+<p>James Kelly himself, as he sat by the fire declaiming at me, was all
+browns and greys, like the country outside his door; and his eyes were
+like brown streams running through that peaty mountain, with their
+movement and sparkle, and their dark depths. At other times easy, like
+that of all Irish peasants, his manner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> changed and grew rough and
+imperious when the business began. I must not interrupt with questions.
+I must write down, syllable for syllable, that the song might be got
+"the right way." It was by no means easy to carry out these directions,
+for the poem was written in an Irish not spoken to-day, as unlike as the
+Chaucerian English is to our common speech; and even to write down
+modern Irish by ear I was poorly qualified. Things were made harder,
+too, by the manner of recitation, as traditional as the words. He
+chanted, with a continuous vocalisation, and while he chanted, elbow and
+knee worked like a fiddler's or piper's marking the time. However, with
+persistence, I got the thing down, letting him first say a verse fully
+through, then writing line by line or as near as I could; then going
+back and asking questions in detail: the son coming to my rescue, when
+the old man lost patience (as he did once in every ten minutes) and
+interposing usefully in our discussions.</p>
+
+<p>For there were endless discussions as to the meaning of words, and
+nothing could be more curious than to see the old man's endeavour to
+give in English not merely a bare rendering, but the colour of every
+phrase. It made me realise as nothing else could have done, how fine was
+his feeling for the shade of a word, and I cannot describe his
+dissatisfaction with the poor equivalents he could find. He was happy
+enough when the debate drifted into an exposition&mdash;always addressed to
+his son&mdash;of the uses of some rare word in the Irish, the manner of
+exposition being by citation of passages from other songs, or phrases
+that might occur in talk. I have listened to many a professor doing the
+same thing in Greek and Latin, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> to none who had a finer instinct for
+the business. Kelly's vexation came when he had to "put English on" a
+word for me, and the obvious equivalent was not the right one. Sometimes
+I could help; sometimes he arrived by himself at what satisfied him,
+though once at least it was droll enough. We were at the lines where
+Connlaoch, dying, says to his father: "If I could give my secret to any
+under the sun, it is to your bright body I would tell it." The trouble
+was about the phrase "bright body," for the word "cneas" means literally
+"skin," but is used (just like &#967;&#961;&#8033;&#962; in Homer) to signify
+"person." What James wanted to convey to me was that the word was not
+the common one for "body," and at last he smote his thigh. "Carkidge,"
+he cried, "it's carkidge (carcase), 'It is to your clear carkidge I
+would tell it.'" A man with less instinct for literature would have said
+"body" at once, and never trouble more; but James knew at once too much
+and too little, and I give the instance to show how an Irishman
+unlettered in English may be deeply imbued with the true spirit of
+letters through a literature of his own.</p>
+
+<p>There were, however, several passages where I could get no clear account
+of the meaning, and in some I have since found by comparison with the
+text which O'Halloran provided for Miss Brooke that Kelly had got the
+words twisted. For instance, the first stanza opens simply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There came to us a stout champion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hearty champion Connlaoch."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But of the next two lines I could get no clearer rendering than that "he
+just came in full through these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> people for diversion and for fun to
+himself." Then the ballad continues at once&mdash;for its method is terse and
+its transitions abrupt throughout&mdash;to give us the words of the men who
+meet Connlaoch on his landing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Where have you been, O tender gallant,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Riding like a noble's son?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Methinks by the way of your coming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You are wandering or astray."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And Connlaoch answers the taunt and the challenge implied:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My coming is over seas from the land<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the High King of the World,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To prove my merry prowess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Athwart the high chiefs of Erin."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>(It seemed to me characteristic that the stock epithet of valour should
+be "merry" or "laughing.") The ballad added no reply (though in Miss
+Brooke's version at this point there is a dialogue of warnings), but
+went on to tell in the shortest possible words how Conall Cearnach ("the
+Victorious") rode out from Emain Macha and met the challenger:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Out started Conall, not weak of hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To get news of the noble's son.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bitter and hard was the way of it;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conall was tied by Connlaoch."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Bring word from us to Hound's head,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said the King in fierce sullen tones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Dundalk sunny and bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the Hound, Dog's jaw."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then Cuchulain (thus described by versions of the nickname won when he
+broke the jaws of Culann's hound) made answer:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hard for us is hearing of the captivity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the man whose plight is told;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hard it is to try the venom of blades<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the warrior that bound Conall."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the messenger pleads:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Do not think but to go to the rescue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the destroying keen dangerous warrior,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the hand that had no fear for any,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To loose him, and he fettered."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then (as Miss Brooke in the majestic manner of the eighteenth century
+puts it):&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Then with firm step and dauntless air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cucullin went and thus the foe addrest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let me, O valiant knight (he cried),<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Thy courtesy request,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To me thy purpose and thy name confide."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And so on through a sonorous description of dialogue and fight till:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"At length Cucullin's kindling soul arose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indignant shame recruited fury lends;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With fatal aim his glittering lance he throws,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And low on earth the dying youth extends."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Or, as I translate almost literally from James Kelly's version, which is
+considerably briefer than the text which Miss Brooke has so volubly
+expanded:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Out set the Hound of the keen, smooth blade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see the work that Conall made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till he pierced with a bitter blow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That hero youth his hardy foe."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That is all we are told of the fighting; the ballad passes straight to a
+terse dramatic dialogue, which Cuchulain opens:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Champion, tell your story,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I see your wounds are heavy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twill be short ere they raise your cairn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So hide your testament no longer."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"That's what he said to the son," said James Kelly, finishing the verse,
+and beginning afresh,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Let me fall on my face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For methinks 'tis you are my father,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for fear lest men of Eir&eacute; should see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Me retreating from your fierce grapple."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Then," said James, "the son spoke for to tell him the reason he
+couldn't spake at the first":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I took pledges to my mother<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not to give my story to any single man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If I would give it to any under the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is to your bright body I would tell it."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>("Complimenting him, like," said James.) Then he recited the stanza
+which tells by implication how in the long duel Cuchulain was at last
+driven to use the irresistible stroke of Sgathach's teaching:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I lay my curse on my mother,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That she put me under pledge;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if it were not for the feat of magic<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I had not been got for nothing."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>(It is a fine phrase surely, "You had paid dear in blood before you
+mastered me.")</p>
+
+<p>Cuchulain answers groaning, with a wail for the lineage that is cut off:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I lay my curse on your mother,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For she destroyed a multitude of young ones;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And because the treachery that was in her<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Left your smooth flesh reddened."<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Then comes, with the boy's dying word, the revelation of the most tragic
+moment in the fight.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Cuchulain, beloved father,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is it not a wonder you did not know me<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I cast my spear crooked and feebly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against your bush of blades."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Where will you find a finer stroke of invention? The boy, tongue-tied by
+his pledge, knows his father and feels his defence failing against the
+terrible onset; he would not, if he could, be the victor, but he thinks
+of a way within the honour of his bond which may awaken knowledge of
+him; and he casts his javelin with a clumsiness not to be looked for in
+the champion "that tied Conall." It is useless, the battle madness is in
+Cuchulain, he thinks only of conquest, an end to the supple, quick
+parrying, and he throws the gaebulg, a spear of dragon's bones bristling
+with points (his "bush of blades"), with the magic cast that there is no
+meeting. And now there is nothing left to him but the lamentation,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Och, och! Great is my madness!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I lifting here my young lad!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My son's head in my one hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His arms and his raiment on the other.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I, the father that slew his son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May I never throw spear nor noble javelin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hand that slew its son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May it win torture and sharp wounding.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The grief for my son I put from me never,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the flagstones of my side crumble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is in me, and through my heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a sharp blaze in the hoar hill grasses.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"If I and my heart's Connlaoch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were playing our kingly feats together,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We could range from wave to shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the five provinces of Erin."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The penultimate stanza, with its magnificent closing image and its truly
+&AElig;schylean hyperbole, is not even suggested in Miss Brooke's version. It
+is, perhaps, the finest thing in the poem; but I hardly know any ballad
+finer as a piece of dramatic narrative; and the resonant verse, strongly
+rhymed (in the Gaelic assonances), and copiously stressed with
+alliteration, bears out the theme.</p>
+
+<p>These, I trust, are critical opinions. But if the collector would have a
+special weakness for a vase which his own spade had unearthed, I may be
+prejudiced in favour of the poem, which I got in the sweat of my brow
+from very probably the one man living who knew it in that form.</p>
+
+<p>Tellers of old Irish fairy tales about enchanted princes, magic cocks
+and hens, and the like, are still numerous; but it is very rare to find
+a man who keeps living the old poetry which was made, perhaps, in the
+twelfth century. Yet while any survive the tradition is still there; the
+song still lives, for I did not spend my hours without feeling that this
+old man could respond to any emotion that the song-maker put into the
+sound and the meaning and the associations of his words. There are still
+those to whom the Irish even of the twelfth century is no dead language.
+Even if it were, no doubt the songs made in it might still be strong in
+life, as are to-day those of Homer and a hundred others. But in the case
+of these smaller literatures, once the tongue itself has ceased to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+heard, dumbness and paralysis fall upon what might else be so full of
+vitality. And a song has more than its own life, it has power to
+quicken, to breed. If any one considers that legend of the son and
+father (found in many languages, yet in none, I think, more finely
+shaped), it is easy to see how from age to age it may revive itself in
+new forms, entering into other shapes, as Helen's figure adorns not her
+own story only, but the praise of a thousand women. Let it be understood
+that this legend is only one of a cycle, and that the song which I wrote
+down was only the barest fraction of James Kelly's repertory. Indeed, he
+was vexed that I should take it as a specimen, for he himself "had more
+conceit in" the lays that tell of Finn and his companions, and I could
+have filled a volume, and maybe several volumes, from his recitations.</p>
+
+<p>These songs may die, the language may die, the Irish race may be
+swallowed up in England and America. But it is my belief that the strong
+intellectual life which made of Ireland a home of the arts before the
+Normans came across channel may, like many another life in nature,
+spring after centuries of torpor into vigour and fertility again. That
+is the belief and hope of many of us; but nothing has rendered me so
+confident in it as to find this work of a strong and fine art not laid
+aside and neglected, but honoured and current to-day, and, though in a
+poor man's cottage, living with as full a life as when it was chanted at
+the feasts of princes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IRISH_EDUCATION_AND_IRISH_CHARACTER" id="IRISH_EDUCATION_AND_IRISH_CHARACTER"></a>IRISH EDUCATION AND IRISH CHARACTER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Education in Ireland has been organised by the State in accordance with
+English ideas. Had English influence been able to bring about any large
+measure of conformity between the two countries, there would have been
+little or no need for a separate paper on moral training in Irish
+schools. But what conformity there is, is purely superficial; and
+although free development has been hindered, and Irish institutions for
+teaching are less characteristic than they would have been if entirely
+left to themselves, still the moral influences which emerge wherever
+pupils and teachers are brought together reveal themselves in Ireland,
+and reveal themselves as Irish. The object of this paper, then, is to
+illustrate, so far as possible, the nature and the symptoms of these
+distinctive influences.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, it may be said broadly that no ordinary person in Ireland
+contemplates the possibility of teaching morality apart from religion;
+and by religion is meant emphatically this or that particular creed.
+Almost every school maintained by the State is managed locally by a
+clergyman, who appoints the teacher, and public feeling is so strong on
+the matter that in any neighbourhood even a small group of families of
+any particular denomination is always provided with a separate school of
+its own. Of late, indeed, opinion has begun to agitate for associating
+the laity with the clergy in the management of schools;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> but this does
+not indicate any desire to lessen the importance given to the part
+played by religion in education.</p>
+
+<p>Further, so far as Catholic Ireland is concerned, an immense proportion
+of the teaching both in primary and secondary schools is done by members
+of religious orders, and in these, of course, there is no conception of
+separating moral influences from religious. There is, however, no
+evidence known to me that even in the few Protestant schools which are
+partly or wholly under lay control any duties, other than those of
+ordinary school work, are inculcated except as part of a Christian's
+religious obligations. This entire state of things is due to the fact
+that positive Christian belief, and the practice of religious
+observances, are everywhere in Ireland very general, and among the
+Catholic population almost universal. It is also hardly necessary to
+point out that in many respects the standard of Irish morality is so
+high that the example of Ireland may be quoted with confidence in
+support of the view which makes moral teaching necessarily a part of
+religion.</p>
+
+<p>But from such broad generalities there is not much to be gathered, and I
+proceed to examine in some detail the existing institutions&mdash;beginning
+at the top with higher education.</p>
+
+<p>It follows from what has been said that, in the general opinion of
+Irishmen, there can be no positive moral influence where there is no
+religious teaching; and for that reason a university without a school of
+theology or arrangements for corporate worship is, to Irishmen, a
+university deficient in moral safeguards. This accounts for the fact
+that Catholic opinion was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> much less opposed to the Protestant
+University of Dublin than to the more modern Queen's Colleges, which,
+designed by England to provide for her wants of Ireland, excluded
+religion entirely from their purview. This provision satisfied no one,
+except to some extent the Presbyterians, who accepted Queen's College,
+Belfast, with some alacrity, though in practice demanding that its head
+should always be a staunch professor of their own persuasion. But
+Catholics as a body refused to accept either the University of Dublin
+with its Protestant atmosphere or the "godless" Queen's Colleges; and
+since Ireland is mainly a Catholic country, and the National University
+has not yet created a tradition, it is clear that not much can be
+gleaned on the subject of Irish ideas of moral training from Irish
+universities.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Trinity College is well worth study, for in it we have a free
+growth, typifying both in its virtues and in its defects the ruling
+Protestant class, landed and professional. Here, unquestionably, the
+chief moral influence is that of the Church, felt, as at Oxford,
+directly through the chapel services and sermons, and indirectly through
+the presence of a large body of theological students. The second of
+these influences is specially strong in Dublin, because these students
+have an organisation of their own in the University Theological Society,
+and also because the work of the Divinity School at Dublin comprises
+much that is done in England by the training colleges. I should
+therefore be inclined to put the positive influence of dogmatic religion
+higher at Dublin than at Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the vaguer humanitarian enthusiasms which are more or
+less allied to Socialism, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> with which the High Church party
+willingly allies itself, have, I think, much less hold in Trinity than
+at the English universities; though the movement which sends so many
+brilliant young Englishmen into work (temporary or permanent) in the
+East End of London has its parallel in the recently organised Social
+Service Society, which attempts something for the reclamation of Dublin
+slums. Again, in regard to more definitely political aspirations, Irish
+Protestants are somewhat unfortunately situated. Trinity as a whole has
+no sympathy with the ideals that appeal to Ireland as a nation, and it
+always seems to lack first-hand touch with the best English thought,
+whether Liberal or Tory. This isolation from the main movement of Irish
+thought and feeling on the one hand, and on the other, this enforced
+separation from the current of English life, keep the place a little
+old-fashioned; and to generate enthusiasm, ideals and feelings need a
+certain freshness. If it be held (as I should hold) that a university's
+main moral function is to produce enthusiasts rather than merely decent
+citizens, in this respect, I think, Trinity fails.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the less direct influences, a good deal may be noted. The
+general trend of life in Trinity is towards frugality, just as at Oxford
+it is towards extravagance. Consequently, money is less of an advantage,
+poverty less of a drawback than at the English universities; the
+standard of living is more uniform; and in the society of which the
+university is typical, and which it influences, respect for wealth as
+wealth is noticeably rare. Again, the idea of education is more
+disciplinary than in England. Irishmen go to college, not to acquire
+culture by contact, but to learn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> certain definite things; and the
+university, in its anxiety to find out if the task is being learnt,
+multiplies examinations. The same idea pervades all Irish education&mdash;the
+old-fashioned demand for a positive result in knowledge; and if it leads
+to an excessive value set upon these tests, it also goes far to
+discourage idleness.</p>
+
+<p>In another matter Trinity College is typical of Irish ideas generally.
+Games are simply taken as games, not as a main business of life in which
+success may even have a marketable value. Everybody recognizes their
+physical use, and more than that, their use as a means of bringing men
+together. But nobody in Ireland, save here and there a stray apostle of
+English notions, talks of the moral lessons to be acquired by fielding
+out or by patient batting. Compulsory games at school are practically
+unknown; nobody plays unless he wants to; so that the duffer does not
+experience the questionable moral advantage of physical discomfort and
+frequent humiliation, and the naturally painstaking or excellent athlete
+gets no more than his fair chance of exercising his gifts. And these are
+less likely to have an undue importance in their possessor's eyes,
+because they will not of themselves lead him to a position of great
+distinction in an Irish university.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, Trinity College is the only place in Ireland&mdash;unless
+perhaps a saving clause should be made for Queen's College,
+Belfast&mdash;which offers what is meant by a university life. The National
+University, whether in Dublin, Cork or Galway, brings young men together
+only in classes and in one or two debating societies. Yet even so, I
+question whether, in some ways, life does not beat stronger in it than
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> Trinity; whether the moral influences proper to a university, the
+enthusiasm, the contagion of generous ideas, are not here more strongly
+felt. The reason for this view must be given.</p>
+
+<p>Trinity has never been the University of Ireland. It is ceasing to be
+the University of Protestant Ireland, for Protestants, who can afford to
+do so, send their sons increasingly to Oxford or Cambridge, and Trinity,
+which has not known how to create a true and special function for
+itself, is becoming merely a cheap substitute for these English
+institutions. And the reason for this is a moral reason which goes to
+the root of many questions connected with Irish education. Should Irish
+schools and colleges seek to educate citizens for the Empire, or
+citizens for Ireland? During the last half century, while the
+Imperialist idea has been developing in England, Trinity has thrown all
+its moral weight into support of that idea. But the Imperialist idea in
+England is very different from the same idea as viewed in Canada or New
+Zealand or Australia; and universities in these countries address
+themselves particularly to local needs. In the section of Ireland which
+Trinity represents, local patriotism is held to conflict with Imperial
+patriotism, and one has to observe that Trinity's Imperialism is
+forwarding tendencies which are leaving her drained. Nationalists may
+respect the sincerity of convictions so pressed in defiance of a local
+interest; but a university, whose main emotional appeal is directed
+towards evoking primarily an enthusiasm for England, cannot be of much
+use to Nationalist Ireland. Catholics may (and do) respect the
+thoroughness of the religious teaching, and the strong grip which
+Protestantism keeps on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> university; but a university which
+inculcates morals through a Protestant religion is not precisely
+suitable to Catholics. Yet Catholics and Nationalists alike infinitely
+prefer a university or a college or a school with strong Protestant
+beliefs, or strong Imperialist patriotism, to an institution with
+neither beliefs nor patriotism at all. The colourless and merely
+scholastic ideals of the Queen's Colleges, and the huge examining
+machinery known as the Royal University, typified in their total lack of
+moral influences all that was worst in the educational system under
+which Ireland labours.</p>
+
+<p>I pass to a brief examination of the boarding schools, institutions
+which have never flourished in Ireland. Nearly all Protestants and many
+Catholics, if they can afford it, send their sons to England to be
+taught. The ideals of the English Public School have reacted so strongly
+upon Irish Protestant schools that nothing need be said of these&mdash;not
+one of which has ever, within living memory, had a continuous
+prosperity. The important Catholic schools are managed by the great
+teaching orders, especially by the Jesuits, and managed at astonishingly
+low cost. They give everywhere more than value for the fees which they
+receive. No unendowed institution could compete with them; and it
+practically comes to this, that the regular clergy subsidise education
+with their own unpaid labour and even with their own funds, in order to
+maintain their influence over the faith and morals of their country.
+Whether it might be more to the advantage of Irish parents to pay more
+and get something different, is another question; but those of us who
+least like the exclusive delegation of these impor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>tant functions to the
+priesthood, cannot but admire the thoroughness and consistency with
+which the Catholic priesthood's idea is carried out. It would be hard to
+overstate the moral effect of that vast organised system of
+self-sacrifice and self-suppression.</p>
+
+<p>Three or four points may be noted in relation to these schools. One is,
+that in all classrooms and playgrounds, a master is always present.
+Comparing this with the system in vogue at many English schools, under
+which a boy out of school hours is always forced to live in public by
+rules which compel him either to be playing some game or looking on
+while others play, I prefer the system of frank supervision, as leaving
+more individual freedom and choice of pursuits, and as making serious
+bullying impossible. Generally, the idea that it is good for a boy to be
+knocked about without stint is foreign to Irish ideas. A pleasant and
+characteristic feature of Jesuit schools is the habit of telling off
+some boy to act as companion and cicerone to a newcomer for his first
+week or fortnight; and the ridiculous English fashion which prescribes
+that the smallest fag should be described as a "man" is unknown.
+Christian names, not surnames, are used generally. The unpopularity of
+boarding schools in Ireland is due to the great value set upon home
+life; and an Irish boarding school is far less distinct from home life
+than an English one.</p>
+
+<p>English eyes would be surprised and a good deal shocked by the presence
+of a billiard table in every playroom; yet it may fairly be argued that
+it is wise to limit the number of things that have the fascination of
+the forbidden. A more serious criticism would address itself to the
+permitted slovenliness. Untidi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>ness amounts to a national vice in
+Ireland, and, though one may overstate its gravity, the secondary
+schools could and should do much more to remedy this national defect
+than they are at present doing. At one first-class Irish
+establishment&mdash;admirably equipped with buildings, playground, and all
+other appliances&mdash;boots used to go unblacked from one end of the month
+to the other. The boys who come here come largely from the well-to-do
+farming class, in whose homes, in many ways so pleasant and worthy of
+respect, there is often a lamentable lack of that charm which comes of
+notable housewifery. The young men who return from this school will be
+less apt than they should be to value good housewifery in their wives
+and mothers.</p>
+
+<p>But of all sinners in this regard the State is the chief offender. Under
+the Code of the National Board of Education a national schoolmaster or
+mistress is bound to teach cleanliness and decency by precept and
+example. He or she is paid an average wage (without allowances) of
+thirty shillings or one pound a week according to sex; and out of that
+an appearance befitting superior station has to be maintained&mdash;for in
+Ireland the schoolmaster has always a position of some dignity. For the
+school the State provides four bare walls, a roof, not always
+weatherproof, and a few desks. Firing is not provided. Decoration is
+subject to inspection, and any picture which can be held to have a
+religious or remotely political bearing is a gross offence against the
+Code. It follows, in practice, that bare walls are kept bare, though not
+clean; and let it be remembered that Catholicism, if left to itself, in
+education always trusts greatly to the appeal to the eye.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> In every
+Catholic school uncontrolled by the State the emblems of religion are
+everywhere present. National schools under State control, even in places
+where there is not a Protestant child within twenty miles, are
+rigorously forbidden the use of any such embellishment. On the other
+hand, Protestant schools which would gladly, and, as I think, most
+laudably, furnish themselves with pictures recalling such memories as
+the shutting of the Derry gates, come under the same tyranny of
+compromise. Taste and culture are the expression of an individuality,
+and individuality is forbidden to Irish teachers in State employ. The
+State puts a schoolmaster into a schoolhouse, without adequate payment
+for himself, without adequate provision either for building or the
+upkeep of building; it bids him to keep it clean, but pays no servant to
+wash or sweep; and, while enjoining the absence of dirt, it checks and
+hampers that desire to decorate, which is the positive side of order and
+taste. The result is, broadly, slatternly schools.</p>
+
+<p>There could hardly be a better moral influence in Ireland than
+tastefully and brightly decorated schools, cleanly kept. But to secure
+this the State must provide money, and must give individual freedom.
+Instead of that, it adapts its institution to the lowest standard of
+living; and the raggedest child out of the dirtiest cottage will
+probably be in full keeping with his environment when he takes his place
+in class.</p>
+
+<p>The same tyranny of compromise sterilises the whole teaching on the
+moral side. Nothing must be taught anywhere which could offend any
+susceptibility&mdash;except in the hour licensed for the teaching of
+denominational religion. There must be no appeal to Irish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> patriotism,
+whether it be of Protestant or Catholic. Irish history may not be taught
+as a subject, and, until lately, anything bearing on it, however
+remotely, was tabooed. The poem <i>Breathes there a man with soul so dead</i>
+was struck out of a lesson book, lest it should encourage sedition.
+To-day certain accepted books on Irish history may be used as readers;
+the Irish language may be taught, and is taught; and gradually with
+these changes new moral influences are coming in. Irish children are
+being encouraged to remember their nationality. Yet, meanwhile, the
+teacher, who is to instruct them in the duties of a good citizen, is
+debarred from taking any part in local politics, from serving on any
+local council. He is forbidden, in fact, to be himself a good citizen;
+forbidden to be anything more than the colourless instrument of a system
+of compromise and countercheck. Nothing is more certain than this, that
+to get a good teacher you need a man's whole personality; you must
+enlist all his beliefs and his feelings in the exercise of that moral
+function of education which can never be fulfilled by a mere machine for
+imparting the rudiments. Man everywhere, but especially in Ireland, is,
+as Aristotle said, a political animal. The State in Ireland, when
+organising education, tries as far as possible to eliminate the man and
+produce the pedagogue.</p>
+
+<p>Take, for contrast with all this, the purely native institution, now
+unhappily extinct, of the old "classical academies" kept in the country
+parts of Munster by private laymen. In the eighteenth century, and on
+into the nineteenth, these men kept alive the tradition of Irish popular
+poetry, sometimes with a real gift. For good or for bad they were
+persons of character<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> and of talent, and the last of them is alive,
+though he keeps school no longer. He taught boys who had learnt the
+rudiments at the ordinary national school, and who wished to carry on
+their studies with a view either to the priesthood or to medicine. He
+was paid only by the fees of his scholars, who were either the sons of
+farmers about him, or of men living at a distance, who sent their
+children to be part of the family in some farm where they had kinship or
+acquaintance. Thus existence for these scholars was divided between the
+home life of a farm and the hours of school. There was, however, a small
+element of what in Ireland were called "poor scholars"&mdash;boys from the
+less prosperous North and West, who came (sometimes walking the whole
+journey) to get learning gratis. To them teaching was never refused, and
+their board was provided by the farmers, who "would be snatching them
+from one and other," since they assisted the other children in preparing
+tasks.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in the school which my friend has described to me, there was no
+formal teaching of anything but the prescribed subjects. But literature
+would be lying about&mdash;Haverty's <i>History of Ireland</i>, and the
+Nationalist papers of the day&mdash;and the teacher was there always ready to
+expound and answer questions. Himself a fighting politician (a member of
+the Fenian organisation, whose name is still sacred throughout Ireland),
+he was careful never to draw in or compromise his pupils; but to teach
+them the story of their country and discuss it with them was part of his
+natural occupation. He taught Irish also, the tongue readiest to him,
+for he held that Irishmen should know their own language; but the
+essential business of his school was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> teaching the simple old-fashioned
+curriculum, Latin, mathematics, and some Greek. Yet because he was a man
+who loved and valued knowledge for its own sake, and loved and valued
+literature, it is probable that he gave a more real training to the mind
+than is achieved by the most modern system of hand and eye culture and
+the rest of it. He taught neither religion nor morals, but his teaching
+assumed throughout, what his example showed, that a man should be true
+and thorough in what he professed to believe, and should be ready at all
+times to make sacrifices for principle. Such a school had the only moral
+influence which in Ireland has ever counted for much&mdash;the influence of a
+strong personality, acting in alliance with the influences of a fully
+realised religion and of an ordered family life.</p>
+
+<p>I sketch a more concrete picture that always rises in my mind with a ray
+of hope, when I think of education in Ireland. Out of doors, winter
+twilight falling on a wild landscape within hearing of the Atlantic
+surf; the man of the house coming out to talk to me, a handsome Irishman
+of the old school, frieze-clad, with the traditional side whiskers, the
+humorous eye and mouth. We talked for a while in the cold, then "<i>Gabh i
+leith isteach</i>," he said, "for I hear you have the Irish." As I paused
+in the door to phrase the Gaelic salutation, more devout and courteous
+than would come to my lips in any other tongue, I was astonished at the
+company gathered in the long low room. Chairs were set by the wide
+hearth of course, and from one of them the woman of the house rose to
+greet me; a settle ran along the side wall, and its length was filled
+with men and women blotted against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> the dusk background. But the centre
+of the picture was a narrow deal table set in the middle of the room,
+with candles on it, and benches on each side, and on the benches fully
+ten children busy with books and copies. "Are these your burden?" I
+asked in the quaint Irish phrase. "A share of them," the man answered;
+and then I understood that some belonged to other neighbours, and that
+it was a mutual arrangement for friendliness and help. None of the
+children budged; there they were, drilled and disciplined at their work,
+in the middle of the room, while their elders sat and chatted quietly. I
+have never seen elsewhere anything which so filled my conception of what
+a home should be, as that farmhouse in Corcabascinn&mdash;so full of order
+and good governance, yet so free of constraint, so full of welcome, yet
+so lacking in expense or display. For, understand, we who were strangers
+were brought (much against my will) into the state-room or parlour
+beyond the party wall, and drink was pressed upon us hospitably. But the
+neighbours who had come there (and came daily, I fancy) came neither to
+eat nor drink (unless maybe tea might be brewing) but simply to sit and
+smoke and talk, and watch that their children got their lessons
+properly. And at the end, perhaps before they parted, perhaps when the
+family was alone, the rosary would be said by the turf fire, that made,
+winter or summer, the centre of all that pleasant existence.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity to think of how poorly the National school, to which those
+children would go with their tasks in the morning, seconds the help
+which this home life gives it. Easily could the school&mdash;which takes
+whatever real light it has from the home, just as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> it depends for warmth
+on the few turf which scholars bring daily along with their
+books&mdash;reflect sound and fruitful ideas on to the home through the
+children. It could teach the children and the parents, not only the
+political, but the economic history of their own country; it could teach
+them what has been done in Ireland, what has succeeded, what has failed,
+and why; it could teach them, who are already proud of being Irish, to
+have new reasons for their pride; it could teach them, who are already
+willing to do their best for Ireland, into what channels the driving
+force of that willingness may be poured.</p>
+
+<p>Outside of definite religion, the only fruitful source of educational
+ideas connected with the moral order that I see in Ireland is the Gaelic
+League. This organisation, founded to save from extinction, and to
+revive into new prosperity the national language of Ireland, based
+itself entirely upon a moral appeal. It appealed to Irishmen as they
+were proud of their race, to save the most distinctive symbol of their
+nationality; and the appeal met with an extraordinary promptness of
+response. But to stimulate and promote the movement, it was found
+necessary to widen the propaganda. Irishmen were urged to learn Irish,
+and to speak Irish because of pride in their country; the same
+organisation soon began to teach that an Irishman who set an example of
+drunkenness, or gave an occasion of it, not only sinned against himself,
+but against his country. Vulgar and indecent literature was denounced as
+un-Irish; Irish dances were advocated, not only for their admirable
+grace and their historic interest, but also because it was held that
+dances like the waltz, departed from the austere standard of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> Irish
+morality. Irish men and women were taught to buy goods of Irish
+manufacture by the people who taught them to learn the language, on the
+ground that if the Irish nation continued to ebb away out of Ireland,
+nationality and language must perish together.</p>
+
+<p>Thus through the medium of a propaganda which at first sight would seem
+merely literary and arch&aelig;ological, many practical issues of life were
+related to a purely educational purpose. There is no doubt that the
+Gaelic League, now a widespread and solidly established organisation,
+spending on the whole, perhaps, &pound;30,000 or &pound;40,000 a year on its
+enterprise, has done as much to promote temperance, and to further Irish
+industries, as it has accomplished in its peculiar task of reviving the
+old tongue. Primarily a teaching institution&mdash;for each of the League's
+eight hundred branches exists to hold classes for Irish study&mdash;it has
+linked with the linguistic teaching a moral idea. The reaction has been
+mutual, for there is more intelligent thought on the methods of
+linguistic teaching in the Gaelic League than one would easily find in
+all the schools and universities of Ireland. The appeal to pride of race
+has quickened intelligence no less than enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very remarkable fact, that the great teaching order of the
+Christian Brothers has taken up the teaching of Irish and generally the
+Gaelic League's whole propaganda more thoroughly than any other
+organisation in Ireland; very remarkable, for their practical success is
+so conspicuous that Protestant clergymen have repeatedly from the pulpit
+appealed for extra support to Protestant schools whose pupils, as one
+preacher said in my hearing, were being ousted in all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> competition for
+employment by the lads from the Christian Brothers' schools. Whatever
+the post was, the preacher said, this body of lay Catholics seemed
+always to have a candidate specially prepared for it. One of the
+greatest institutions in charge of that order is the industrial school
+at Artane, near Dublin, where eight hundred boys are being prepared for
+different trades. Every single one of those boys is now being taught
+Irish; that is to say, a linguistic training with a special appeal to
+the learner's patriotism has been superimposed on the ordinary
+rudiments. It is a great experiment made by enthusiasts who are also
+teachers with an intensely practical bent.</p>
+
+<p>It is too early even to forecast the effect which is likely to be
+produced upon Irish education generally by the new university colleges
+set up under Mr. Birrell's Act. Yet this may be said. Irish education
+needs reform from the top downwards, not from the bottom upwards. It has
+lacked idealism, and these universities in which Ireland, whether of the
+north or the south, will be free to express its own character, can and
+should set up ideals which will govern every school in the country.
+Trinity College has been free to follow its own bent, and its eyes
+to-day are, in scriptural phrase, "on the ends of the earth." Primary
+education, secondary studies, as governed by the machinery controlled
+through the Board of Intermediate Education, and university teaching as
+directed and rewarded through the Royal University, have all in the last
+resort been inspired by Englishmen who thought it very desirable that
+Irish boys and girls should learn to read and write and cipher, and that
+young men and young women should equip them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>selves for clerkships in the
+civil service, but who never for one instant realised that the end of
+education is divergence not conformity&mdash;to elicit, whether from the race
+or from the individual, a full and characteristic development. In twenty
+years perhaps a paper of interest may be written to show the positive
+results of education upon Irish character. At present the most
+noticeable facts are negative, and may be summed up by affirming a total
+lack of correspondence between the system employed and the needs and
+qualities of the Irish people.</p>
+
+<p class="author">1907.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_IRISH_GENTRY" id="THE_IRISH_GENTRY"></a>THE IRISH GENTRY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>At the height on the struggle over the Home Rule Bill, there was
+published a book interesting as the biography of a remarkable
+individual, but no less interesting as depicting the crucial moment in
+the history of an aristocracy. Colonel Moore wisely entitles the life of
+his father simply <i>An Irish Gentleman</i>. Versatile, eloquent,
+quick-tempered and lovable, excessive in generosity, excessive in
+courage and self-confidence, with the racecourse for his ruling passion
+and horsemanship for his supreme achievement, George Henry Moore was the
+paragon of his class. He displayed in the highest degree those qualities
+on which the Irish gentry prided themselves and which they most admired:
+he shared the prestige and power of Irish landlords when prestige and
+power were at their height; and he confronted the decisive hour when he,
+and men like him, had to choose between the interest of their country
+and the interest of their class. There he separated himself from his
+fellows; he parted from all to whom he was bound by ties of immediate
+advantage, of pleasure, of association, of affection, and he threw in
+his lot with Ireland. He saw first the moral bankruptcy of his own
+class, then their widespread financial ruin; and though he helped to
+break their political power, and in so doing earned the general love of
+his countrymen, yet the troubles which beset the landlord class did not
+spare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> him, and he died, broken-hearted, forty-three years ago, at the
+beginning of a struggle which is not ended yet. It is well worth while
+to consider the circumstances of that stormy career.</p>
+
+<p>First a brilliant schoolboy, then an idle law student, George Henry
+Moore was driven to travel by the complications of a passionate love
+affair, and he travelled adventurously, being a pioneer of exploration
+in the Caucasus and Syria. Sketches reproduced in the book show that he
+could draw no less well than he wrote. Returning to Ireland at the age
+of twenty-seven, he devoted himself entirely to hunting and racing, and
+few men were better known on the turf, nor were there even in the West
+of Ireland more desperate riders than his brother and himself. George
+Henry was carried off the field at Cahir in 1843 to all appearance dead;
+he was alive enough to hear discussion as to his burial. Augustus, less
+lucky, died of a fall he took riding Mickey Free in the Grand National
+two years later. The brothers were closely bound to each other in
+affection, and this was a heavy blow to the survivor; but George Moore
+continued to race, and in 1846 made the coup of his life, winning
+&pound;10,000 on "Coranna" for the Chester Cup. He sent &pound;1,000 of it home for
+distribution among his tenants, and there was soon sore need of the
+money, for that year saw the second and disastrous failure of the potato
+crop. The Irish Famine made the turning-point in Moore's history, as in
+that of his class. The catastrophe which brought him into public life
+and into the service of his country demonstrated, cruelly enough&mdash;though
+this was the least of its cruelties&mdash;the futility of the Irish gentry as
+a whole.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By the shock of his brother's death in 1845 Moore's mind had been turned
+to serious thoughts. Matter was not lacking. The report of the Devon
+Commission upon Irish land, joined to the first failure of the potato
+crop&mdash;with its accompaniment of distress and widespread agrarian
+crime&mdash;gave any Irish landlord food for reflection, and in March, 1846,
+when a vacancy occurred in the representation of Mayo, Moore came
+forward as a Whig candidate. The whole landlord interest was at his
+back, but a Repealer opposed him, and O'Connell's influence carried the
+day. There were fierce encounters, the landlords marching their tenants
+to the poll under guards of soldiers, the popular side falling upon
+these escorts and sometimes carrying off the voters&mdash;or enabling them to
+escape. One of Moore's friends, Mr. Browne, afterwards Lord Oranmore,
+wrote: "I now see we owe our lives to the priests, as they can excite
+the whole people against us whenever they like. Whatever may be the
+cause, Ireland needs reconquering."</p>
+
+<p>That was a typical expression of the gentry's view. Plainly Ireland was
+in rebellion when landlords could no longer carry their tenants to the
+polls to vote as the landlord directed. Moore however differed from the
+generality of Irish landlords in one important respect. He was not
+divided by religion from the people over whom he ruled, and he can never
+have had Mr. Browne's feeling of aloofness from Ireland as a country
+which might need reconquering to re-establish the ascendancy of the
+"English garrison"; nor was it natural to him to distrust the priests as
+leaders of a separate and subject race.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1846, when the threat of famine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> had become a
+certainty, Moore came home to Mayo, where there was grim business to be
+done. His tenants, on an estate running up into the wild Partry
+mountains, numbered five thousand souls. For their benefit he utilised
+far more of his winnings on "Coranna" than the tithe which he had
+originally ear-marked; and not one of all these his dependants died of
+want in that outlandish region, though in places far less remote death
+was ravenous. He was chairman of the Relief Board for the whole county,
+and slaved at his task&mdash;not harder than other landlords in other parts
+of Ireland. But his methods were more drastic, his view of the situation
+clearer. Folk must have rubbed their eyes and perhaps stopped to think
+twice when the owner of "Wolfdog," of "Anonymous," and a score of other
+famous horses, wrote, in answer to a request for his annual subscription
+to the local races, that he thought the county of Mayo "as little fit to
+be the scene of such festivities as he to contribute to their
+celebration."</p>
+
+<p>But Moore did not content himself with mere administration of relief. He
+saw that the English Government was apathetic and incompetent to face so
+terrible an affliction, and he took in hand to create within his own
+class an organised force of Irish opinion to bind together the ruling
+Irishmen for the good of Ireland. In company with his friend and
+kinsman, Lord Sligo, he "travelled through twenty-seven counties and
+personally conferred with most of the leading men in Ireland on the
+urgent necessity of a united effort to save the sinking people." The
+result was that between sixty and seventy members of Parliament and some
+forty peers pledged themselves to endeavour to secure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> united action
+upon measures regarding Ireland in the new session. On the 14th of
+January, 1847, the Irish landlord class held such a muster as had not
+been seen since the Union. "Nearly twenty peers, more than thirty
+members of Parliament, and at least six hundred gentlemen of name and
+station took part in it. The meeting called on Government to prohibit
+export of food stuffs and to sacrifice any sum that might be required to
+save the lives of the people." It passed thirty resolutions without
+dissension; and then some one asked what was to be done if the
+Government refused to adopt any of their suggestions. Would Irish
+members then unite to vote against the Government? To this, Irish
+members refused to pledge themselves, and Moore, as he said afterwards,
+"saw at a glance that the confederacy had broken down."</p>
+
+<p>That was the end of the revolt of the Irish gentry. It was really the
+decisive moment of their failure; disorganised and futile, they went
+down by scores in the ruin of the Encumbered Estates Court, while their
+tenants were marking with their bones a road across the Atlantic. As for
+the landlords who were popular leaders, within a few months after that
+great assembly, Daniel O'Connell, who had proposed the first resolution,
+died in Rome, heart-broken. A few months more and Smith O'Brien, the
+mover of another resolution, headed a rebellion in sheer despair.</p>
+
+<p>Smith O'Brien had twenty years of parliamentary life behind him when he
+was driven to the wild protest of insurrection. Twenty years of the same
+experience were to bring Moore to a very similar attitude; but in 1847
+Moore was hopeful of building up in Parliament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> the nucleus of an
+Independent Irish Party. When the dissolution came, in 1847, he stood
+for a second time, but as an Independent, and his work in the famine
+times carried at least its recognition. Every single elector who went to
+the poll gave one of his two votes to the Independent. He went to
+Westminster and denounced with equal energy the agrarian murders, which
+were then rife in Ireland, and those organs of publicity in England
+which sought to magnify these outrages into an indictment against the
+Irish nation. The ferment of indignation against English methods had not
+yet died out in the hearts of Irish landlords. Lord Sligo, writing to
+Moore concerning the controversy which followed, used these words: "I
+believe that <i>The Times</i> did much to cause the feeling which resulted in
+landlord and parson shooting; it will end by turning us all into
+Repealers." If only it had! But Moore got no help from the landlord
+class, and the well-to-do Catholic professional men with whom he was
+principally allied proved themselves unable to resist the temptations of
+office and of personal interest. In the days of Sadleir and Keogh he
+fought a desperate fight against Whig place-seekers; his reward was to
+be finally unseated (in 1857) on an election petition, the charge being
+that spiritual intimidation had been exercised on his behalf by the
+priests. As Colonel Moore observes, if a landlord threatened his tenants
+with disfavour, which meant eviction, that was "only a legitimate
+exercise of their rights of property"; but if a priest told his flock
+that a man would imperil his soul by selling his vote or prostituting it
+to the use of a despot, the candidate whom that priest supported would
+lose his seat and be disqualified for re-election.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From this time onward George Henry Moore found himself heading the same
+way as Smith O'Brien had gone. In 1861 he told the Irish people that if
+they desired freedom they must take a lesson from Italy; they must
+"become dangerous"; and he advocated the formation of a new Irish
+volunteer force to emulate that of 1782. Nothing came of this; but after
+the American war a new movement grew up, not this time among the
+landlords or the professional men, nor countenanced by the priests, but
+nursed in the fierce heart of the people. Ireland had become dangerous.
+Colonel Moore recognises rightly the difference between the Fenian
+organisation and the Young Ireland movement which had preceded it. Both
+were idealistic, but the idealism of 1848 was "the inspiration of a few
+literary gentlemen, poets, and writers." Smith O'Brien, its titular
+head, was influenced profoundly by the aristocratic conception of his
+rightful place as representing the Kings of Thomond. Fenianism was
+democratic; it was officered largely by men who had themselves fought in
+the most stubborn of modern wars and who had seen what Irish regiments
+could do in the citizen levies of Federals and Confederates. It was
+spontaneous, and it was strong; the measure of its strength is given not
+by the few flickering outbreaks easily suppressed, but by the terror
+which it inspired, and by the change which it wrought in the spirit of
+the people. Moore when he took the step, extraordinary for a man in his
+position, of enrolling himself in that sworn and secret conspiracy can
+hardly have failed to foresee the collapse of Fenianism as a fighting
+force; but he recognised that (in his son's words) "the old complacent
+toleration of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> schemers and dishonest politicians had vanished and a
+sturdy independence had taken its place."</p>
+
+<p>With the advent of that spirit the power of the Irish landlords was
+doomed. They had made their choice; when they might have made common
+cause with the whole people of Ireland they had refused to rise beyond
+their immediate personal advantage and the interests of their class.
+Moore, who was of themselves, who shared all their pleasures, who loved
+them, was forced to take a hand in their overthrow. From 1858 onward he
+had been almost entirely out of politics, living the life of a popular
+country gentleman, racing and hunting more successfully than ever; his
+most famous horse, "Croagh Patrick," ran in the 'sixties. But in 1868 he
+flung all this aside, sold his horses, and undertook to fight the
+alliance of Whig and Tory which had dominated County Mayo in the
+landlord interest for ten years.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I shall have the question settled (he said) whether one lord shall
+drive a hundred human souls to the hustings, another fifty, another
+a score; whether this or that squire shall call twenty, or ten, or
+five as good men as himself "his voters" and send them up with his
+brand on their backs to vote for an omadhaun at his bidding.</p></div>
+
+<p>He did settle it. Mayo beat the landlords then, and Mayo became the
+cradle of popular movements ever after. This most typical of Irish
+land-owning gentlemen had been forced to sever himself from his class
+and even to injure his class, and it was not by advocacy of
+self-government that he estranged so close a friend as Lord Sligo.
+Fintan Lalor's policy, rejected by the Young Irelanders in 1846, was
+beginning to take hold in 1868; the movement for self-government was
+becoming linked on to the driving force of land-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>hunger. In the eyes of
+Lord Sligo and all his class Tenant Right meant Landlord Wrong, and
+Moore himself was not exempt from that feeling. He suffered indeed, for
+rents that he had reduced to a figure fixed by the tenants' own
+arbitrators were withheld from him. Yet he knew clearly that it was
+necessary for the country, and not more necessary than just, to secure
+the tenants in their holdings. No one disputes now that he was right.
+But the last thing he desired was to abolish the landlords. If they did
+not like the leadership of the priests "they have," he said, "a remedy
+left; let them make themselves more popular than the priests. If the
+landlords will make common cause with the people, the people will make
+common cause with them." There was never a truer word spoken, but it
+fell on closed ears.</p>
+
+<p>Moore himself broke the landlords' power at the polls; their infinitely
+greater power, proceeding from control of the land, was broken by
+another Mayo man, Michael Davitt, the evicted peasant from Straide,
+close by Moore Hall. That fight was bound to come when Moore's warning
+and the warning of men like him was set at nought. What a change it has
+made! and what has been lost to Ireland!</p>
+
+<p>Moore died in 1870. His last year of life saw a hope that Presbyterian
+farmers of the North, interested in Tenant Right, who had been
+temporarily allied to Catholics in the struggle for Disestablishment,
+might unite solidly with the Nationalists. Even the Protestant gentry
+afforded numerous supporters to Butt's Home Rule policy at its outset.
+But of this nothing serious came. The Land Act of 1870 was ineffective,
+and it seemed that, in spite of Fenianism, all would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> go on as before.
+Throughout the 'seventies the landlord class was in undisturbed
+supremacy. Country gentlemen still talked in good set phrase about "the
+robbery of the Church"; in actual fact they were very complacently and
+competently helping to administer its new constitution. Agriculture was
+prosperous and rents went high, though the harsh and overbearing
+landlord was condemned by his fellows. This, however, was poor
+consolation to the tenants. In the county where I was brought up, one
+landlord was a name of terror, and there was no redress from his
+tyranny, until at last the peasantry found it for themselves. The grim
+old man died fighting hard before his brains were dashed out on the
+roadside, and two innocent people were killed along with him; but no
+sane person could fail to perceive that, within five years of his taking
+off, the whole district was improved out of knowledge. The moral to be
+drawn was only too obvious; yet none of the landlords drew it; the
+established interest of a class is too strong a thing for that class to
+shake themselves out of its influence.</p>
+
+<p>The men of that generation&mdash;how well I remember them! most vividly
+perhaps as they used to come in to church on Sunday morning, when the
+ladies of their families addressed themselves to devotions kneeling,
+while the men said their prayers standing, peering mysteriously into
+their tall hats&mdash;a strange ritual, of which traces may be observed at
+the House of Commons, but nowhere else, I fancy, on earth. On week days
+they lived an orderly, dignified existence in their big old-fashioned
+houses, leaving home little, though the more cultivated among them had
+travelled in their youth and knew thoroughly some foreign country. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+their own orbit they had power, leisure, and deference, all of which set
+a stamp upon them; individuality had great scope to develop, and an able
+man among them was a man made for government. One such stands out in my
+memory. Stormy tales were told of his youth, but from himself no one
+heard a whisper of these far-off exploits; small, exquisitely neat,
+finely made and finely featured, he was courteous and gentle-spoken with
+all; but he was of those quiet creatures who breed fear. I cannot
+imagine the situation of power of responsibility from which he would
+have shrunk, or to which he would have been unequal; neither can I
+imagine him anxious in the pursuit of office. That was Parnell's type.
+Parnell's strength appears to have lain precisely in that
+self-confidence which was a law to itself and which no prestige of fame
+or authority could shake or overawe. The men who might have been
+Ireland's leaders were men extraordinarily suited for the conduct of
+affairs, but as a class they had been thrown out of their natural
+relation. Castlereagh, who in his cold efficiency had much in common
+with Parnell, accomplished a desperate deed when he made the Union
+through them. He committed their honour to justify for all time that
+transaction. If those who condemned the Union were not traitors, then
+the class from whom it was bought with cash and titles stood convicted
+of infamy; and since the heart of Ireland loathed and detested
+Castlereagh's work, the whole body of the Irish gentry found themselves
+inevitably estranged from the heart of Ireland. On one side was the
+interest of a class&mdash;and not merely the material interest but the
+interest of its honour, which sought a justification in the name of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+loyalty; on the other was the interest of Ireland; and the landlord who
+chose the side of Ireland severed himself necessarily, as Moore had to
+do, from his own friends and kin.</p>
+
+<p>For years now there has been moving through many minds in Ireland the
+question whether this state of things must permanently endure. Is that
+estrangement inevitable? I at least think otherwise. Throughout the last
+two decades of the nineteenth century landlord and tenant were opposed
+in a struggle for definite material interests; it was a fight not only
+for free conditions of tenure but for the reduction of rent, if not for
+its total abolition. A way of peace was found in State-aided land
+purchase, and in a reconstitution of the whole agricultural order. The
+landlords, where they have been bought out, have not even the duty of
+rent collecting. How will this affect their traditional attitude, which
+calls itself loyalty to the English connexion, but which I interpret
+rather as a traditional justification of the Union and of the hereditary
+landlord policy? If self-government is established without dissolution
+of the Union, is it not reasonable to suppose that there will be a
+change in men's dispositions?</p>
+
+<p>The question involved is really more serious, though of far less
+political importance, than that of Ulster. Whatever happens, the
+industrial community of Belfast and its district is not going to run
+away. That element will not be lost to Ireland; it is too strong, too
+well able to assert itself; and it is anchored by its interest. The
+ex-landlords, now that their occupation is gone, are bound to Ireland
+only by habit and attachment. At present they fulfil no essential
+function;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> and it will be open undoubtedly for the gentry once more to
+make an error mischievous to Ireland and disastrous to themselves. They
+may take up the line of unwilling submission, of refusal to co-operate,
+of cold-shouldering and crying down the new Parliament and the new
+Ministry. Social pressure may be exercised to keep men from seeking
+election, and so to perpetuate the existing severance between the
+leisured and wealthier classes and the main body of the nation. There
+will be strong tendencies in this direction. But on the other hand I
+think that among the men who have grown up under the new order there is
+an increasing willingness to accept the change. One friend of mine&mdash;no
+politician, and, like all non-politicians, a Unionist&mdash;said to me lately
+that he would be rather disappointed if Home Rule did not become law&mdash;he
+was "curious about it"; and he added, "I think a great many like me have
+the same feeling." Others probably have a more positive outlook, and
+desire to take an active part in the public life of their country; and
+there will be a strong desire among Irish Nationalists to bring in at
+the outset those who wish to come in. On the other hand, no less
+certainly, there will be the feeling that is natural towards those who
+wish to reap where they have not sown; and the gentry will need to make
+allowance for this. If they set out with the notion, as some did when
+Local Government was established, that places are theirs by right when
+they condescend to take them&mdash;that they are entitled to election because
+they have more money, more education, because, if you will, they are, in
+the eye of pure reason, better qualified&mdash;nothing but trouble can come
+of such a disposition. Ireland, which in George Henry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> Moore's time was
+the most aristocratically governed part of the British Isles, is now by
+far more democratic, at all events, than England: the poor man is on a
+level with the rich, and means to stay there. Those who want to go into
+Irish politics, under Home Rule as now, must take their chances in the
+ruck; but if they do, they will find a people ready and even eager to
+recognise their qualities, and to allot perhaps more consideration than
+is due to their social position.</p>
+
+<p>With all their practical democracy, the Irish have a great tenderness
+for "the old stock." In the cases (and there are many hundreds of them)
+where a landlord or professional man or Protestant clergyman has been
+for long years a real friend and support and counsellor to his poorer
+neighbours, as Irish in voice and looks and gesture as they, sharing
+their tastes and their aversions, their sport and their sorrow, yet
+divided and cut off from them by a kind of political religion, I believe
+from my heart that there will be on both sides a willingness to
+celebrate the end of that old discord in some happy compact. But on both
+sides there must be generosity and a sympathy with natural hesitations
+and reluctances. Whatever comes or goes, the old domination of the
+gentry has disappeared; yet, whatever comes or goes, men of that class
+may find a sphere of usefulness and even of power in Ireland. But this
+will be infinitely easier to achieve when the great subject of
+contention is removed, and when the ex-landlord can seek election, and
+the ex-tenant can support him, without a sense on either side of turning
+against the traditional loyalties of a class.</p>
+
+<p class="author">1913.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="YESTERDAY_IN_IRELAND" id="YESTERDAY_IN_IRELAND"></a>YESTERDAY IN IRELAND.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Oh, maybe it was yesterday, or forty years ago," says the verse of an
+Irish song. That is the kind of indeterminate "yesterday" which is
+described in <i>Irish Memories</i> by two friends who have made some memories
+of Ireland imperishable. "The Ireland that Martin and I knew when we
+were children," writes Miss Somerville, "is fast leaving us; every day
+some landmark is wiped out." No one knows better than she that while in
+many parts of Ireland you must go back very close on forty years to
+reach any likeness of that old way of life, yet in other parts yesterday
+and forty years ago are very much the same. Still, she would reply, and
+I must admit, that one profound modification has affected even the most
+unchanging places, altering the whole position of the class in which she
+was born and bred. In a sense, all her memories of Ireland concern
+themselves with this change, depicting either what formerly was, and the
+process of its passing, or what yet remains and seems likely to vanish
+too. Her presentment of yesterday is well worth study, for its outlook
+is typical of the most generous and shrewdest minds among the Irish
+gentry. I use here an old-fashioned word, somewhat decried, but it is
+the only one that expresses my meaning.</p>
+
+<p>But readers will know that this is not only a book of memories; it is,
+if not a memoir, at least the memo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>rial of a singularly brilliant Irish
+woman. Miss Somerville had planned to write her recollections, as she
+had written so much else, in collaboration with her cousin and comrade,
+"Martin Ross"&mdash;Miss Violet Martin, of Ross, in County Galway. It did not
+so fall out; and though in this volume one is aware that the narrator is
+often (by a sort of sub-conscious habit) speaking out of two minds, from
+a dual complex of associations, and though considerable fragments of
+Martin Ross's own writing give a justification to the joint signature,
+yet one of the two comrades is joint author now only in so far as she is
+part of all the memories, and a surviving influence little likely to
+pass away. But her stock, so to say, in the partnership remains; Galway,
+no less than Cork, is the field over which these memories travel. In the
+main, the book is concerned with recalling the joint kindred of the two
+friends and cousins, and reconstituting the surroundings and the
+atmosphere of both families. Families, however, are conceived and
+depicted in their most extended relations; figures are evoked of chief,
+vassal, page and groom, tenant and master; and with them go their
+"opposite numbers" (to borrow an army term) from chieftainess to cook.
+Chieftainesses are there unmistakably. One ex-beauty had retired from
+the Court of the Regent to Castle Townshend (Miss Somerville's personal
+background), and there lived long, "noted for her charm of manner, her
+culture and her sense of humour."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Near the end of her long life she went to the funeral of a
+relative, leaning decorously upon the arm of a kinsman. At the
+churchyard a countryman pushed forward between her and the coffin.
+She thereupon disengaged her arm from that of her squire and struck
+the countryman in the face.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miss Somerville observes that such stories may help to explain the
+French Revolution; but she adds, quite plausibly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It is no less characteristic of the time that the countryman's
+attitude does not come into the story, but it seems to me probable
+that he went home and boasted then, and for the rest of his life,
+that old Madam&mdash;&mdash; had "bet him in a blow in the face."</p></div>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly the chieftain-spirit is admired, and not least when it shows
+itself in a woman. A more lenient and more modern example is to be found
+in the account of a dispute about bounds in a transaction under the Land
+Purchase Act. After all other agencies failed, the landlord's sister
+called the disputants before her to the disputed spot, stepped the
+distance of the land debatable, drove her walking-stick into a crevice
+of the rock (disputes are passionate in opposite ratio to the value of
+the land) and, collecting stones, built a small cairn round it. "Now
+men," she said, "in the name of God let this be the bounds." And it was
+so. "It failed the agent, and it failed the landlord, and it failed the
+priest; but Lady Mary settled it," was the summing up of one of the
+disputants. That was a chieftainess for you.</p>
+
+<p>Not inferior in chieftainly spirit was Martin Ross's grandfather who
+"had the family liking for a horse."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It is recorded that in a dealer's yard in Dublin he mounted a
+refractory animal, in his frock-coat and tall hat, and took him
+round St. Stephen's Green at a gallop, through the traffic, laying
+into him with his umbrella.</p></div>
+
+<p>Somehow that picture gives a measure of the remoteness. Stephen's Green
+was not then a place of square-set granite pavement, tram-rails and
+large swift-moving electric trams; it was a leisurely promenade where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+large slow-moving country gentlemen turned out in tall hats and
+frock-coats. We of Miss Somerville's generation depend on our
+imagination, not on memory, to reconstruct the scene. The grandfather in
+question died before the great famine of 1847, which shook and in many
+places uprooted the old order without yet bringing in the new. His son,
+Martin Ross's father, had the famine to cope with and survived it; but
+of the second convulsion from which emerged the Ireland of to-day he saw
+only the beginning, for he died in 1873, when the organised peasant
+uprising was at most a menace. But his wife knew both periods&mdash;the bad
+times of the late 'forties and the bad times of the early eighties. The
+true link with the past for the writers of <i>Irish Memories</i> is through
+the female line. This is a book of mothers and daughters rather than of
+fathers and sons.</p>
+
+<p>Martin Ross's mother went back easily in memory to the society which had
+known the Irish Parliament, had made or accepted the Union, and which,
+after the Union, exercised chieftainship in Ireland. She was the
+daughter of Chief Justice Bushe, one of Grattan's rivals in oratory,
+who, like Grattan, had opposed the Union with all the resources of his
+eloquence. Against his name in the private Castle list of voters for the
+crucial division had been written in despair one word: "Incorruptible."
+He was the common ancestor whose blood made the bond of kinship between
+Miss Somerville and Martin Ross, and both these staunch Unionist ladies
+are passionately proud of the part which their grandfather played in
+resisting the Union; just as you will find the staunchest Ulster
+Covenanters exulting in the fact that they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> a forbear "out" with the
+United Irishmen at Antrim or Ballynahinch in 1798. No wonder Englishmen
+find Ireland puzzling; but Scots understand, for their own records
+abound in examples of the same paradoxes of historic sentiment.</p>
+
+<p><i>Yesterday in Ireland</i>, I think, for my present purpose comes to define
+itself as the period between the famine of 1847 and the famine of
+1879&mdash;between the downfall of O'Connell and Parnell's coming to power.
+We who were born in the 'sixties grew up in the close of it, and perhaps
+recognise now more clearly than when they were with us the characters of
+our kindred who were a part of it as mature human beings. "The men and
+women, but more specially the women of my mother's family and
+generation, are a lost pattern, a vanished type." I could say the same
+as Miss Somerville. There was a spaciousness about those people, a
+disregard of forms and conventions, a habit of thinking and acting for
+themselves which really came down from a long tradition of interpreting
+the law to their own liking. Miss Somerville and her comrade knew the
+type in its fullest development, for both grew up in far-out
+Atlantic-bordering regions&mdash;Carbery of West Cork, Connemara of West
+Galway&mdash;where the countryside knew scarcely "any inhabitants but the
+gentry and their dependents. 'Where'd we be at all if it wasn't for the
+Colonel's Big Lady?' said the hungry country-women, in the Bad Times,
+scurrying, barefooted, to her in any emergency to be fed and doctored
+and scolded." So writes Miss Somerville of her mother; so might Martin
+Ross have written of her father, who was, so far as in him lay, a
+Providence for his tenantry. Yet there is a story told of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> Mr. Martin
+that throws a flood of light on the whole position of affairs. Who were
+indeed the dependents? And on what did they depend? The story tells of a
+widow down by Lough Corrib, long in arrears with her rent.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Master sent to her two or three times, and in the end he walked
+down himself, after his breakfast, and he took Thady (the steward)
+with him. Well, when he went into the house, she was so proud to
+see him, and "Your Honour is welcome," says she, and she put a
+chair for him. He didn't sit down at all, but he was standing up
+there with his back to the dresser, and the children were sitting
+down one side the fire. The tears came from the Master's eyes,
+Thady seen them fall down the cheek. "Say no more about the rent,"
+says the Master to her, "you need say no more about it till I come
+to you again." Well, it was the next winter, men were working in
+Gurthnamuckla and Thady with them, and the Master came to the wall
+of the field, and a letter in his hand, and he called Thady over to
+him. What had he to show but the widow's rent that her brother in
+America sent her.</p></div>
+
+<p>Martin Ross, writing in the light of to-day, makes this comment:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It will not happen again; it belongs to an almost forgotten r&eacute;gime,
+that was capable of abuse, yet capable too of summoning forth the
+best impulses of Irish hearts.</p></div>
+
+<p>War, famine and pestilence&mdash;all these are capable of summoning forth
+splendid impulses; but society should not be organised to give play to
+these hazards of feeling. The fundamental truth about yesterday in
+Ireland is that everybody accepted as natural a state of affairs under
+which Irish gentry were taking rents that could not be earned on the
+land which was burdened with them. Landlord and tenant alike were really
+dependent on what was sent back by the sons and daughters of poor people
+from America to prevent the break-up of homes. The whole situation was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+false, from top to bottom. At top, a small class, physically and often
+mentally superb, full of charm, extraordinarily agreeable, fit for great
+uses, but by temperament, habit and education unequipped for its proper
+task of equipping and directing the labour out of which ultimately it
+had to live or perish. It perished. At bottom, a multitude with
+marvellous constitution, undermined by age-long under-feeding, friendly,
+most lovable, most winning, but untrained and unequipped, half-hearted
+in its business of rolling the pitiless stone up the never-ending hill.
+It survived&mdash;clinging with a desperate tenacity to the soil which so
+meagrely nourished it. But during that generation of yesterday&mdash;and how
+many generations before it?&mdash;there grew up inevitably, from the
+conditions, a traditional toleration of incompetence, a faith as it were
+in inefficiency. Ireland of yesterday was bound up in one vicious circle
+of work that was necessarily underpaid because it was inefficient, and
+work that was necessarily inefficient because it was underpaid. In the
+lower class there were no reserves; the dependants lived from hand to
+mouth, and when hand failed to find food, they had to come to the upper
+class, first for remission of its claims on them and then for actual
+subsistence. But the dependence was mutual, and there were no reserves
+at top equal to the needs of that joint hazard. Penury was only at two
+removes from the "gentry houses." While the first line of defence, the
+tenants, held good, the world went pleasantly for the Ireland of
+yesterday. But when that line broke, and starvation burst in, then the
+best men and women in the big houses flung their all into the common
+stock, and went under&mdash;as did the chief of the Martins in Connemara.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That, however, happened the day before yesterday; yesterday saw nothing
+so dire. But the menace of it was always there, and the rest of Ireland
+gradually consolidated itself for a struggle to win what had long ago
+been acquired for Protestant Ulster&mdash;the right of a tenant to what his
+own labour created. The Ulster custom has done for Ulster, industrial as
+well as agricultural, more than is generally perceived. It gave in some
+degree recognition to efficiency. Tenure was there less precarious, less
+dependent on the landlord's pleasure; men were freer, work had more
+rights. There was less room for impulse, perhaps less appeal to
+affection; but when a business relation is based on impulse and
+affection, where rights are not solid and defined, the sense of
+obligation easily leads men astray. That which is given out of loyalty
+and affection comes to be taken as a due. Martin Ross&mdash;"Miss Violet,"
+whom the people of Ross called "the gentle lady," as beautiful a name as
+was ever earned by mortal&mdash;inherited with little qualification the
+landlord standpoint. She recalls the story of an election in 1872, when
+her father, going to vote in Oughterard, saw "a company of infantry
+keeping the way for Mr. Arthur Guinness (afterwards Lord Ardilaun) as he
+conveyed to the poll a handful of his tenants to vote for Captain
+Trench, he himself walking in front with the oldest of them on his arm."
+She does not ask if the tenants desired to be so conveyed. She merely
+describes how her father "ranged through the crowd incredulously, asking
+for this or that tenant, unable to believe that they had deserted him."
+When he came home, "even the youngest child of the house could see how
+great had been the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> blow. It was not the political defeat, severe as
+that was, it was the personal wound, and it was incurable."</p>
+
+<p>Looking back through all those years, the "gentle lady" can see nothing
+in that episode but a case of priestly intimidation. "One need not blame
+the sheep who passed in a frightened huddle from one fold to another."
+Yet friends of mine in Galway look back on it in a very different
+spirit; they remember the Nolan-Trench election and Captain Nolan's
+victory as a triumph of the poor, a first instalment of freedom; it
+brought with it an exultation very different from the mere outburst of
+hatred that these pages suggest. What is more, having been privileged to
+sit in the most widely representative assembly of Irishmen that modern
+Ireland has known, I can testify that to-day peer and peasant, clergy
+and laymen, those who opposed it, and those others who fought for it,
+alike admit that the change which such a victory fore-shadowed was
+necessary and was beneficent. But it was a revolution. Ireland of
+yesterday was Ireland before the revolution. The Ireland that Miss
+Somerville and Martin Ross have lived in as grown women has been a
+country in the throes of a revolution, long drawn-out, with varying
+phases, yet still incomplete. Those who judge Ireland should remember
+this. In time of revolution, life is difficult, ancient loyalties clash
+with new yet living principles, sympathy and justice even are unsure
+guides. No country could have been kept for forty years in such a
+ferment as Ireland has known without profound demoralisation. We may
+well envy those who lived more easily and quietly in the Ireland of
+yesterday, and held with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> unquestioning spirit to the state of things
+in which they were born.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the folk of whom Miss Somerville writes with "that indomitable
+family pride that is an asset of immense value in the history of a
+country." They "took all things in their stride without introspection or
+hesitation. Their unflinching conscientiousness, their violent
+church-going (I speak of the sisters), were accompanied by a
+whole-souled love of a spree and a wonderful gift for a row." I can
+corroborate her details, especially the last. All those that I recall
+had some talent for feuds; at least, in every family there would be one
+warrior, male or female; and all had the complete contempt, not so much
+for convention as for those who were affected in their lives (or
+costumes) by any standard that was not home-made. But in all humility I
+must admit that the real heroines of this book&mdash;Mrs. Somerville and Mrs.
+Martin&mdash;outshine anything that my memory can produce. When Martin Ross
+and her mother went back to West Galway and re-established themselves at
+their old home, a letter from her to Miss Somerville describes one
+incident:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I wish you had seen Paddy Griffy, a very active little old man, and
+a beloved of mine, when he came down on Sunday night to welcome me.
+After the usual hand-kissings on the steps, he put his hands over
+his head and stood in the doorway, I suppose invoking his saint. He
+then rushed into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Dance, Paddy," screamed Nurse Bennett (my foster-mother, now our
+maid-of-all-work).</p>
+
+<p>And he did dance, and awfully well, too, to his own singing. Mamma,
+who was attired in a flowing pink dressing-gown and a black hat
+trimmed with lilac, became suddenly emulous, and with her spade
+under her arm joined in the jig. This lasted for about a minute,
+and was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. They skipped round the hall,
+they changed sides, they swept up to each other and back again and
+finished with the deepest curtseys.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My own mother would gladly have done the same on a like occasion, but
+she lacked Mrs. Martin's talent for the jig. Mrs. Somerville is sketched
+with a free and humorous hand. I quote only one detail, but it shows the
+real Irishwoman, more deeply in touch with Ireland's traditional life
+than any Gaelic League could bring her. Question arose how to find a
+suitable offering for 'an old servant of forty years' standing, whose
+fancies were few and her needs none.' "Give her a nice shroud," said
+Mrs. Somerville, "there's nothing in the world she'd like so well as
+that."</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare could not have outdone that intuition, and only one of the
+larger breed would have been unconventional enough to suggest what the
+younger generation, hampered by other feelings than those of West
+Carbery, "were too feeble to accept."</p>
+
+<p>These two traits belong to the harmonious and thoroughly Irish grouping
+in which such ladies as Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Somerville were central
+figures of the whole countryside. That grouping exists no longer, and
+this book has to describe the discord which interrupted that harmony.
+Martin Ross's elder brother, Robert Martin (famous in his day as the
+writer and singer of <i>Ballyhooly</i>, and a score of other topical songs),
+left his work as a London journalist to help in fighting the first
+campaign which brought the word "boycott" into usage.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It was at this work (his sister writes), that Robert knew for the
+first time what it was to have every man's hand against him, to
+meet the stare of hatred, the jeer and the sidelong curse; to face
+endless drives on outside cars with his revolver in his hand; to
+plan the uphill tussle with boycotted crops and cattle for which a
+market could scarcely be found; to know the imminence of death,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+when by accidentally choosing one of two roads he evaded the man
+with a gun who had gone out to wait for him.</p></div>
+
+<p>Robert Martin faced, in a word, the earliest and ugliest phases of that
+Irish revolution, which was the Nemesis of the all too easy and too
+pleasant ways of yesterday in Ireland. Later, after his death, Martin
+Ross herself had to gain some experience of the same trouble. When she
+went back with her mother to re-establish the family home from which
+they had been fifteen years absent, there was a hostile element in the
+parish, and gracious hospitality was ungraciously met. An attempt was
+made to keep children from a children's party which she had organised.
+The move was half-hearted and her energy defeated it, but that the
+attempt should be made was such "a facer" as she had never before known.
+Like many another ugly thing in Ireland, it originated in that cowardly
+fear of public opinion which is to be found on the seamy side of all
+revolutions; and it did not stand against her "gallant fight to restore
+the old ways, the old friendships."</p>
+
+<p>The old ways, in so far as they meant the old friendships, she might
+hope to restore, although the friendship would, half consciously, take
+on a new accent; personality would count for more in it, position for
+less. But the old relation which authorised a kind-hearted landlord to
+feel that his tenants had "deserted him" because they voted against his
+wish in an election&mdash;that is gone for ever; and gone, at all events, for
+the present, is the local leadership of the gentry.</p>
+
+<p>I question whether it is realised that in parting from that leadership
+Ireland lost what was in a sense Home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> Rule. In the "yesterday" of which
+I write Ireland was governed in all its parochial and most intimate
+affairs by a class or a caste; but that governing class was Irish&mdash;Irish
+with a limitation, no doubt, yet still indisputably Irish. When that
+rule perished, when that class lost its local ascendancy, government
+became the bastard compromise that we have known, with power
+inharmoniously divided between officialdom and agitators. The law was
+framed and administered by officials, often English or Scotch,
+possessing no authority except what the law conferred on them. Authority
+lay very largely with popular leaders; but leadership and authority
+alike were purely personal, depending on a man's own qualities and the
+support which they evoked. No man was born to it as of right, and such
+authority is far more precarious than the established power of a
+governing class. This is a weakness in all democratically-governed
+countries, but where there is self-government, the individual, in
+entering upon office, acquires the support and the prestige of a
+long-established machinery of power. He ceases to be merely the
+individual when he becomes part of the Government. For the Irish leaders
+this reinforcement to the personal authority has never existed; they
+have been at a terrible disadvantage as compared with all other
+democratic politicians; and consequently the power exercised by them has
+always, except perhaps at Parnell's zenith, been far less than was the
+combined authority of the gentry before the landlord rule was broken.
+Those who shared in that authority acted, and could afford to act, with
+unquestioning confidence; they were surer of themselves, than is any
+popular leader or any offi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>cial in Ireland of to-day. It seldom occurred
+to them to ask whether their conduct in any juncture might meet with
+approval; being a law to other people, they were naturally a law to
+themselves, and an Irish law. Their power was excessive, and demoralised
+them by its lack of limitation; yet many of the qualities which it bred,
+made them an element of great value in the country. These qualities are
+by no means extinct in their kindred, nor is the tradition of their
+right to leadership forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Of one thing Miss Somerville and those for whom she speaks (she is a
+real spokeswoman) may be well assured. Whatever be the surface mood of
+the moment, whatever the passing effect of war's hectic atmosphere,
+nothing is more deeply realised throughout Ireland than the need to
+restore the old ways, the old friendships&mdash;the need to bring back the
+gentry to their old uses in Ireland, and to so much of leadership as
+should be theirs by right of fitness. When the history of the Irish
+Convention comes to be fully recorded, it will be seen that a great
+desire was universally felt, cordially uttered, in that assembly, to
+bridge over the gulf which divides us from yesterday in Ireland, and to
+recover for the future much of what was admirable, valuable and lovable
+in a past that is not unkindly remembered. Indeed, it is plain that Miss
+Somerville has felt the influences that were abroad on the winds, when
+she wrote of her comrade:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Her love of Ireland, combined with her distrust of some of those
+newer influences in Irish affairs to which her letters refer, made
+her dread any weakening of the links that bind the United Kingdom
+into one; but I believe that if she were here now, and saw the
+changes that the past eighteen months have brought to Ireland, she
+would be quick to welcome the hope that Irish politics<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> are lifting
+at last out of the controversial rut of centuries, and that
+although it has been said of East and West that "never the two
+shall meet," North and South will yet prove that in Ireland it is
+always the impossible that happens.</p></div>
+
+<p>North and South&mdash;that is a more difficult gulf to bridge, for the one I
+have been speaking of is only a breach to repair. But industrial
+Protestant Ulster and the rest of Ireland have never really been one.
+Unity there has not to be re-established, but created. Martin Ross went
+to the North only once "at the tremendous moment of the signing of the
+Ulster Covenant," and she was profoundly impressed by what she saw. She
+wrote about it publicly and she wrote also privately (in a letter which
+I had the honour to receive) a passage well worth quoting:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I did not know the North at all. What surprised me about the place
+was the feeling of cleverness and go, and also the people struck me
+as being hearty. If only the South would go up North and see what
+they are doing there, and how they are doing it, and ask them to
+show them how, it would make a good deal of difference. And then
+the North should come South and see what nice people we are, and
+how we do that.</p></div>
+
+<p>When that reciprocal pilgrimage was accomplished by the Convention, her
+anticipations were more than justified. But how clever she was! In a
+flash, she, coming there a stranger, hits on the word which describes
+Ulster and differentiates it from the rest of Ireland. "Hearty," that is
+what they are; it is the good side of their self-content. No people that
+is in revolution can be hearty&mdash;least of all when revolution has dragged
+on through more than a generation. Distrust of your comrades&mdash;distrust
+of your leaders&mdash;self-distrust&mdash;these are the characteristic vices of
+revolution (look at Russia), and they sow a bitter seed. Pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>testant
+Ulster has never known revolution; for it yesterday and to-day have been
+happily, naturally, continuous. Political change it has known, normal
+and beneficent; land purchase came to Ulster as a by-product of what the
+rest of Ireland endured in torment, and agony, and self-mutilation.
+Clever the Northerns are, but their cleverness issues prosperously in
+action; they carry on in a solidly-established order; they have not
+needed to break down before they could begin to build. That is why their
+heartiness stood out when they were assembled, as I have seen them in a
+common council of Irishmen, which was also, thank heaven, a
+companionship. But the world at large can see it exhibited in another
+way. Contrast the work of the Ulster Players with that of the Abbey
+Theatre. <i>The Drone</i> is perhaps not the best of new Irish comedies, but
+it is infinitely the pleasantest; there is no bitter tang in its hearty
+humour. Even in <i>The Enthusiast</i>, a sketch which has some touch of
+pessimism, there is little more than a good-humoured shrug of the
+shoulders when the Enthusiast abandons his pretensions to make himself
+heard against the banging of Orange drums. I find a very different note,
+not merely in the work of Synge, of Boyle, Colum, Lennox Robinson, and
+the rest of the Abbey dramatists, but even in the books of which Miss
+Somerville was joint author. When Ireland is seen with the eyes, for
+instance, of her Major Yeates, is not the whole attitude one of amused
+and acquiescent resignation? Take the hunting out of it (with all the
+humours of the hunt)&mdash;take the shooting and fishing&mdash;and what is left
+but a life (to borrow a phrase from Mr. George Moore) "as melancholy as
+bog-water and as ineffectual."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> Miss Somerville would probably decline
+to imagine an Ireland with these unthinkable suppressions, but after
+all, we cannot live by or for sport alone. What gave dignity and reality
+to the life of yesterday was leadership in one class, and loyalty in the
+other. Leadership resting on ownership is gone now, dead as the dodo;
+what is left for the like (say) of Mr. Flurry Knox if he should begin to
+take himself seriously? You can easily make a soldier of him; we have
+all met him in trenches and observed his airy attitude in No Man's Land.
+But soldiering has generally meant expatriation. For my part, I hope
+some day to see this gentleman (or his like) play a useful part in some
+battalion of Irish territorials&mdash;some home service offshoot of the
+Connaught Rangers. But that is not enough. If those who, like Miss
+Somerville, love Ireland's yesterday and desire to link it up with a
+worthy to-morrow, there must be a wider understanding of Ireland, not in
+the North only, but in that element of the South and West which stands
+to-day in a sense morally expatriated. The Irish gentry who complain
+that their tenants "deserted" them must learn where they themselves
+failed their tenants. Leadership cannot depend merely on a power to
+evict, and they would to-day repudiate the desire for a leadership so
+grounded. But between free men where there is not comprehension there
+can be no leadership.</p>
+
+<p>I take first what is most difficult&mdash;the very heart of antagonism.
+Everyone who desires to understand Ireland to-day should read Patrick
+Pearse's posthumous book, called boldly <i>The Story of a Success</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> It
+is the spiritual history of Pearse's career as a schoolmaster, edited
+and completed by his pupil, Desmond Ryan; and it is a book by which no
+one can be justly offended&mdash;a book instinct with nobility, chivalry and
+high courtesy, free from all touch of bitterness; a book, too, shot
+through and slashed with that tragic irony which the Greeks knew to be
+the finest thrill in literature&mdash;the word spoken, to which the foreknown
+event gives an echo of double meaning. Pearse was concerned with
+Ireland's yesterday; he desired to bring the present and the future into
+organic rotation with the past. But his yesterday was not Miss
+Somerville's nor mine. The son of an English mechanic and a Galway
+woman, he was brought up in Connemara after the landlord power had
+ceased to exist. Ireland's past for him and Irish tradition were seen
+through the medium of an imagination in touch only with the peasant
+life, but inspired by books and literature, written and spoken. His
+yesterday was of no definite past, for he had been born in a revolution
+when the immediate past was obliterated. In his vision a thousand years
+were no more than the watch of some spellbound chivalry, waiting for the
+voice that should say, "It is the time." Cuchulain and Robert Emmet were
+his inspirations, but the champion of the legendary Red Branch cycle and
+the young revolutionary of Napoleon's days were near to him one as the
+other, in equally accessible communion. Going back easily to the heroic
+legends, on which, though blurred in their outline, his boyhood had been
+fostered by tellers of long-transmitted tales at a Connemara hearthside,
+he found the essential beauty and significance where more learned though
+less cultured readers have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> bewildered by what seemed to them wild
+extravagances of barbarism. What he gathered from them did not lie
+inert, but quickened in him and in others, for he was the revolutionary
+as schoolmaster&mdash;the most drastic revolutionary of all. In the school
+review which was the first vehicle for these writings of his, he hoped
+to found "the rallying point for the thought and aspirations of all
+those who would bring back again in Ireland that Heroic Age which
+reserved its highest honour for the hero who had the most childlike
+heart, for the king who had the largest pity, and for the poet who
+visioned the truest image of beauty." All his theory of education was
+based on the old Irish institution of fosterage, which was no mere
+physical tie of the breast; the child sent to be fostered was sent to be
+bred and trained, and it was a tie stronger than that of its blood or of
+the breast. <i>Irish Memories</i> shows incidentally how great a part this
+fosterage played in the Ross of yesterday&mdash;that family with its
+multitude of children was bound to the countryside by all the "Nursies."
+But the Martin household, and all similar households were, in a less
+literal sense, fostered by the peasantry at large. The truest part of
+education should be to know your own country (a principle much neglected
+in Ireland), and which of us all, who had the good fortune to be brought
+up in touch with Irish peasant life, does not realise our debt? We
+received a devotion, an affection, for which no adequate return could be
+made&mdash;it is the nature of fosterage that the fosterer should give more
+than can ever be requited; but we gained also our real knowledge, in so
+far as we ever had it, of the countryside, the traditional wisdom, the
+inherited way of life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> There was more to be got if we had the wit to
+assimilate it. Almost all of modern Irish literature that has lasting
+value is evoked from elements floating in peasant memory, in the peasant
+mind, and in the coloured peasant speech of an Ireland which keeps
+unbroken descent from a long line of yesterdays. Mr. Yeats is only the
+chief of those who draw from this source. Miss Somerville herself and
+her cousin must have known well that the real worth of their work lies
+in their instinct for the poetry which, more specially in
+Gaelic-speaking regions, sits in rags by roadside and chimney corner.
+Irish poetry is not only the tragic voice of the keene; Gaelic had its
+comic muse as well, a robust virago, of the breed which produced
+Aristophanes and Rabelais&mdash;and Slipper with his gift for epic narrative
+is a camp-follower of that regiment.</p>
+
+
+<p>Yet in Miss Somerville's appreciation there is often&mdash;not always&mdash;a
+sense of the incongruity as well as of the beauty in peasant speech. The
+woman crying for alms of bread who described her place of habitation, "I
+do be like a wild goose over on the side of Drominidy Wood," moves to
+laughter as well as to pity with the dignity of her phrase. Ireland so
+felt is Ireland perceived from the outside&mdash;seen as a picturesque ruin.
+You cannot so see Pearse; he is too strong for even compassionate
+laughter. What he embodies is the central strength of Irish
+nationalism&mdash;its disregard of the immediate event.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Wise men have told me that I ought never to set my foot on a path
+unless I can see clearly whither it will lead me. But that
+philosophy would condemn most of us to stand still till we rot.
+Surely one can do no more than assure one's self that each step one
+takes is right; and as to the rightness of a step one is
+fortunately answerable only to one's conscience and not to the wise
+men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> of the counting house. The street will pass judgment on our
+enterprises according as they have "succeeded" or "failed." But if
+one can feel that one has striven faithfully to do a right thing,
+does not one stand ultimately justified, no matter what the issue
+of one's attempt, no matter what the sentence of the street?</p></div>
+
+<p>By such teaching he commended to his scholars, and to Ireland, the
+spirit which he desired to see expressed in "that laughing gesture of a
+young man that is going into battle or climbing to a gibbet." Strange
+country, that has the gibbet always before the eyes and almost before
+the aspiration of its idealists! It was so yesterday&mdash;in all the
+yesterdays&mdash;and yet the reason is plain. All the aspirations of such
+idealists have been regarded as criminal by the class for which Miss
+Somerville and her cousin speak&mdash;criminal and menacing to those who,
+holding the power, arrogated to themselves a monopoly of loyalty. They
+have always conceived of Pearse and his like as thirsting for their
+blood. Miss Edgeworth, in a letter printed for the first time in <i>Irish
+Memories</i>, writes:&mdash;"I fear our throats will be cut by order of
+O'Connell and Co. very soon." We know enough to-day about O'Connell to
+realise how far this estimate lay from the truth of things; yet Miss
+Somerville herself talks about "Parnell and his wolf-pack." Justin
+McCarthy, John Redmond, Willie Redmond&mdash;these were some of the wolves
+who presumably wanted to tear Miss Somerville's kindred to pieces. That
+is where the change must come; there must be among the gentry some
+generous understanding of Nationalist leaders before the grave has
+closed over them. Anyone can see what is bad in Sinn F&eacute;in, but no one
+can fight that evil effectively, no one can convert to better uses the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+ill-guided force which Sinn F&eacute;in represents, until he understands what
+is best in it. Sinn F&eacute;in has largely replaced a movement which, in its
+later phases, dwelt perhaps too much on the material advantages which it
+offered as the reward of support. Sinn F&eacute;in's strength has lain not in
+what it has offered, but in what it has asked; it has asked for
+devotion, and Pearse certainly both gave that and received it. Such was
+his teaching, and I do not know a better saying for the Irish gentry to
+ponder over than the last sentence in these essays of his: "The highest
+thing anyone can do is to serve."</p>
+
+<p>That temper was perhaps lacking in the Ireland of yesterday which Miss
+Somerville so lovingly describes. To command loyalty as a right, to
+reward it by generosity, by indulgence&mdash;this made part of the ideal of
+leadership; but scarcely to be laborious either in rendering or exacting
+capable work.</p>
+
+<p>The old way of life was good for children, as Martin Ross describes it
+in her sketch of her brother's upbringing.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Everything in those early days of his was large and vigorous; tall
+trees to climb, great winds across the lake to wrestle with,
+strenuous and capable talk upstairs and downstairs, in front of
+furnaces of turf and logs, long drives and the big Galway welcome
+at the end of them.</p></div>
+
+<p>But for the grown men, it lacked one thing: effort. Pleasant it was;
+lots of everything, lots of hunting, lots of game on the moors and bogs,
+lots of fish in lake and river, lots of beef and mutton on the farm,
+lots of logs and turf, lots of space&mdash;above all, lots of time, and
+always the spirit for a spree that made everyone "prefer good fun to a
+punctual dinner." There was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> only one deficiency: that way of life was
+apt to be short of cash. It was, in short, a life that could not pay its
+way. The "big Galway welcome" is just as big with a sounder economic
+system, that rests solidly on men's own work. Anyone who knows Western
+Ireland can tell you that the quality of work is better on the land
+where men are their own masters than it was in the old days. Yet even
+there we are not out of the old vicious circle of under-pay and
+under-work; and in the industrial life we are fully entangled in it. But
+here also the revolutionary as schoolmaster has appeared. To my thinking
+the most momentous apparition in Ireland of our times is that of Mr.
+Ford, who is paying American wage rates for labour in Cork, and
+calculating, not to get value for his money at once, but to teach labour
+to be worth it. According to his gospel, as it was expounded to me, you
+will not get efficiency by offering to pay the wages of efficiency when
+labour becomes efficient: you must first provide the conditions of
+efficiency and then teach, just as in the army your first care is to get
+a recruit fit and your second to make him thorough in his ground work.
+That is the practical recognition of what yesterday in Ireland failed to
+recognise.</p>
+
+<p>Nor does this ideal of strenuous and capable work exclude either the
+strenuous and capable talk of Martin Ross's Galway household or anything
+else that was excellent in the old way. Certainly the most laborious and
+the most prosperous peasant household that I have ever known (and for
+many months I was part of it) was the most thoroughly and traditionally
+Irish, except that it was removed by one generation from Gaelic speech.
+But the whole cast of mind was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> Gaelic, remote as the poles from that
+"newer Ireland" which is in revolt against all tradition of
+authority&mdash;and, if they only knew it, against all Irish tradition. Miss
+Somerville thinks, as a page in her book shows, that the newer Ireland
+has lost the endearing courtesy which is imposed by the genius of the
+Gaelic tongue, and is for that matter to be found in every line of
+Pearse's essays. We can educate back to that without any detriment; we
+can be as efficient and as courteous as the Japanese. Another thing is
+gone. Ireland of yesterday, even in its poverty, was a merry country;
+to-day, even in its prosperity, it is full of bitter, mirthless rancour
+and hate. It will be a great thing if we can help to preserve for
+Ireland the exquisite benediction which a beggar woman in Skibbereen
+laid upon Martin Ross: "Sure, ye're always laughing! That ye may laugh
+in the sight of the glory of Heaven."</p>
+
+<p class="author">1918.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE</h3>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "The Story of a Success." By P. H. Pearse. Being a Record of
+St. Erda's College, September, 1908, to Easter, 1916. Edited by Desmond
+Ryan, B.A. Maunsel &amp; Co.</p></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Irish Books and Irish People, by Stephen Gwynn
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH BOOKS AND IRISH PEOPLE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22264-h.htm or 22264-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/2/6/22264/
+
+Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/22264-page-images/f001.png b/22264-page-images/f001.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1e39276
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/f001.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/f002.png b/22264-page-images/f002.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..83b156f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/f002.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/f003.png b/22264-page-images/f003.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f12873f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/f003.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/f004.png b/22264-page-images/f004.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..04837ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/f004.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/f005.png b/22264-page-images/f005.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..091de13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/f005.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/f006.png b/22264-page-images/f006.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..900f691
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/f006.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/f007.png b/22264-page-images/f007.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..568ab63
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/f007.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/f008.png b/22264-page-images/f008.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d129d92
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/f008.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p007.png b/22264-page-images/p007.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b7f01d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p007.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p008.png b/22264-page-images/p008.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a197ed5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p008.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p009.png b/22264-page-images/p009.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ad06c7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p009.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p010.png b/22264-page-images/p010.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..727cdeb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p010.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p011.png b/22264-page-images/p011.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2471b07
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p011.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p012.png b/22264-page-images/p012.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eae2f36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p012.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p013.png b/22264-page-images/p013.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..216cb00
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p013.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p014.png b/22264-page-images/p014.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f33e8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p014.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p015.png b/22264-page-images/p015.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f288e89
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p015.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p016.png b/22264-page-images/p016.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f06b435
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p016.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p017.png b/22264-page-images/p017.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49b76d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p017.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p018.png b/22264-page-images/p018.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..34533db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p018.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p019.png b/22264-page-images/p019.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fedad64
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p019.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p020.png b/22264-page-images/p020.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3c07fe2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p020.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p021.png b/22264-page-images/p021.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2177264
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p021.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p022.png b/22264-page-images/p022.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3c99a83
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p022.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p023.png b/22264-page-images/p023.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2ca8e0e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p023.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p024.png b/22264-page-images/p024.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..43d0772
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p024.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p025.png b/22264-page-images/p025.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..724625d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p025.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p026.png b/22264-page-images/p026.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b486faf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p026.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p027.png b/22264-page-images/p027.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f65a7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p027.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p028.png b/22264-page-images/p028.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e75a03f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p028.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p029.png b/22264-page-images/p029.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4782964
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p029.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p030.png b/22264-page-images/p030.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e388403
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p030.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p031.png b/22264-page-images/p031.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..740610f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p031.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p032.png b/22264-page-images/p032.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9b34b39
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p032.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p033.png b/22264-page-images/p033.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5ebac10
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p033.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p034.png b/22264-page-images/p034.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b70e0a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p034.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p035.png b/22264-page-images/p035.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4beebdf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p035.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p036.png b/22264-page-images/p036.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..268af49
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p036.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p037.png b/22264-page-images/p037.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..17a175b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p037.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p038.png b/22264-page-images/p038.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..75caf7d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p038.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p039.png b/22264-page-images/p039.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5cb6e24
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p039.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p040.png b/22264-page-images/p040.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d6a3abe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p040.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p041.png b/22264-page-images/p041.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9432342
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p041.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p042.png b/22264-page-images/p042.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee0a59c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p042.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p043.png b/22264-page-images/p043.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..13b9691
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p043.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p044.png b/22264-page-images/p044.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..19ed528
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p044.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p045.png b/22264-page-images/p045.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1f69893
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p045.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p046.png b/22264-page-images/p046.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..652d9d9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p046.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p047.png b/22264-page-images/p047.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6747dd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p047.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p048.png b/22264-page-images/p048.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..868bed2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p048.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p049.png b/22264-page-images/p049.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..df99a9f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p049.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p050.png b/22264-page-images/p050.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..af93920
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p050.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p051.png b/22264-page-images/p051.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4810807
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p051.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p052.png b/22264-page-images/p052.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..409489e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p052.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p053.png b/22264-page-images/p053.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..25037e9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p053.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p054.png b/22264-page-images/p054.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dc90a8c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p054.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p055.png b/22264-page-images/p055.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4f48e23
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p055.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p056.png b/22264-page-images/p056.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cde90c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p056.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p057.png b/22264-page-images/p057.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5eb315b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p057.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p058.png b/22264-page-images/p058.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e2c9524
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p058.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p059.png b/22264-page-images/p059.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eae183a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p059.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p060.png b/22264-page-images/p060.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc50e50
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p060.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p061.png b/22264-page-images/p061.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f174397
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p061.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p062.png b/22264-page-images/p062.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eae0430
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p062.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p063.png b/22264-page-images/p063.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eba59f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p063.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p064.png b/22264-page-images/p064.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3f5df33
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p064.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p065.png b/22264-page-images/p065.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b4a740f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p065.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p066.png b/22264-page-images/p066.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..96a0919
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p066.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p067.png b/22264-page-images/p067.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..afda854
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p067.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p068.png b/22264-page-images/p068.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1e1d2c2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p068.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p069.png b/22264-page-images/p069.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c054395
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p069.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p070.png b/22264-page-images/p070.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c7cd3c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p070.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p071.png b/22264-page-images/p071.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..444a51f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p071.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p072.png b/22264-page-images/p072.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..750ee9a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p072.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p073.png b/22264-page-images/p073.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dfcf791
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p073.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p074.png b/22264-page-images/p074.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1b67bd4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p074.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p075.png b/22264-page-images/p075.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e517af5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p075.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p076.png b/22264-page-images/p076.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bf6eacb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p076.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p077.png b/22264-page-images/p077.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9cfb0eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p077.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p078.png b/22264-page-images/p078.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6277422
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p078.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p079.png b/22264-page-images/p079.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6826437
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p079.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p080.png b/22264-page-images/p080.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f3d1d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p080.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p081.png b/22264-page-images/p081.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d62720f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p081.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p082.png b/22264-page-images/p082.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9712d5b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p082.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p083.png b/22264-page-images/p083.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c52eab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p083.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p084.png b/22264-page-images/p084.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eb3f0a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p084.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p085.png b/22264-page-images/p085.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..04af996
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p085.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p086.png b/22264-page-images/p086.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d4e73ff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p086.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p087.png b/22264-page-images/p087.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1b2bdb7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p087.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p088.png b/22264-page-images/p088.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1f89d6a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p088.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p089.png b/22264-page-images/p089.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ab4d8a7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p089.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p090.png b/22264-page-images/p090.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9176cc5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p090.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p091.png b/22264-page-images/p091.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee28f4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p091.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p092.png b/22264-page-images/p092.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..401b874
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p092.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p093.png b/22264-page-images/p093.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..adaa665
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p093.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p094.png b/22264-page-images/p094.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e5b11a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p094.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p095.png b/22264-page-images/p095.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6659be2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p095.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p096.png b/22264-page-images/p096.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fe0a639
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p096.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p097.png b/22264-page-images/p097.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e97d2b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p097.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p098.png b/22264-page-images/p098.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6e8b7b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p098.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p099.png b/22264-page-images/p099.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5ec013a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p099.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p100.png b/22264-page-images/p100.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..367bdd9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p100.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p101.png b/22264-page-images/p101.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ea405bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p101.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p102.png b/22264-page-images/p102.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4623393
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p102.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p103.png b/22264-page-images/p103.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6a282cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p103.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p104.png b/22264-page-images/p104.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2655305
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p104.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p105.png b/22264-page-images/p105.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..08cfa20
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p105.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p106.png b/22264-page-images/p106.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41f99f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p106.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p107.png b/22264-page-images/p107.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0639faa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p107.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p108.png b/22264-page-images/p108.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fcb3eba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p108.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p109.png b/22264-page-images/p109.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f91df60
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p109.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p110.png b/22264-page-images/p110.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..95187b9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p110.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p111.png b/22264-page-images/p111.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49b6a61
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p111.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p112.png b/22264-page-images/p112.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b284e2f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p112.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p113.png b/22264-page-images/p113.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..098ba3b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p113.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p114.png b/22264-page-images/p114.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b5d2367
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p114.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p115.png b/22264-page-images/p115.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..08535d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p115.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p116.png b/22264-page-images/p116.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c76615e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p116.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p117.png b/22264-page-images/p117.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4f15615
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p117.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p118.png b/22264-page-images/p118.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8607898
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p118.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p119.png b/22264-page-images/p119.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b495706
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p119.png
diff --git a/22264-page-images/p120.png b/22264-page-images/p120.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2786f52
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264-page-images/p120.png
diff --git a/22264.txt b/22264.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..469695f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3645 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Irish Books and Irish People, by Stephen Gwynn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Irish Books and Irish People
+
+Author: Stephen Gwynn
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22264]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH BOOKS AND IRISH PEOPLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ IRISH BOOKS
+ AND IRISH PEOPLE
+
+ By
+
+ STEPHEN GWYNN.
+
+
+ DUBLIN
+ The Talbot Press Ltd.
+ 89 Talbot Street
+
+ LONDON
+ T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.
+ 1 Adelphi Terrace
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+                                                                     Page
+ INTRODUCTION                                                           1
+
+ NOVELS OF IRISH LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY                         7
+
+ A CENTURY OF IRISH HUMOUR                                             23
+
+ LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES:
+
+   I.--THE SHANACHY                                                    44
+
+   II.--THE LIFE OF A SONG                                             51
+
+ IRISH EDUCATION AND IRISH CHARACTER                                   65
+
+ THE IRISH GENTRY                                                      83
+
+ YESTERDAY IN IRELAND                                                  97
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+My publisher must take at least some of the responsibility for reviving
+these essays. All bear the marks of the period at which they were
+written; and some of them deal with the beginnings of movements which
+have since grown to much greater strength, and in growing have developed
+new characteristics at the expense of what was originally more
+prominent. Other pages, again, take no account of facts which to-day
+must be present to the mind of every Irish reader, and so are, perhaps
+significantly, out of date. Nobody for instance, could now complain that
+Irish humour is lacking in seriousness. Synge disposed of that
+criticism--and, indeed, the Abbey Theatre in its tone as a whole may be
+accused of neglecting Ireland's gift for simple fun. Yet Lady Gregory
+made the most of it in her "Spreading the News," and Mr. Yeats in his
+"Pot of Broth."--How beautifully W. G. Fay interpreted an Irish laughter
+which had no bitterness in it.
+
+But the strong intellectual movement which has swept over Ireland has
+been both embittering and embittered. These last five and twenty years
+have been the most formative in the country's history of any since
+Ireland became the composite nation that she now is, or, perhaps, has
+yet to become. At the back of it all lies the great social change
+involved in the transfer of ownership from the landlord to the
+cultivators of the soil--a change which has literally disenserfed
+three-fourths of Ireland's people. Yet the relations are obscure,
+indefinite, and intangible, which unite that material result to the
+outcome of two forces, allied but distinct, which have operated solely
+on men's minds and spirits. These are, of course, the Gaelic revival and
+the whole literary movement which has had its most concrete expression
+in the Irish theatre, and its most potent inspiration in the personality
+of Mr. Yeats.
+
+Of these two forces, one can show by far the more tangible effects, for
+the Gaelic League has issued in action. Setting out to revive and save
+the Irish language as a living speech, the instrument of a nation's
+intercourse, it has failed of its purpose; but it has revived and
+rendered potent the principle of separation. Nationalist, it will have
+nothing to do with a nationality that is not as plainly marked off from
+other nationalities as a red lamp from a green lamp; and the essential
+symbol of separate nationality is for orthodox Gaelic Leaguers a
+separate language. America, said an able exponent of this doctrine the
+other day in a public debate, will never and never can be a nation till
+its language is no longer recognisable as English--till its English
+differs as much from the language of England as German differs from
+Dutch. An inevitable corollary to this view is the necessity for
+complete political separation from Great Britain--if only to provide the
+machinery for this complete differentiation by daily speech.
+
+I cannot pretend to assess impartially the value of this movement. It
+asserted itself in passionate deeds at a moment when many thousands of
+us Nationalists were taking equally vigorous action in pursuit of a
+less tribal ideal. Thousands of us lost our lives, all of us risked our
+lives, with the hope of achieving a national unity which could never be
+built on the basis of regarding no man as an Irishman who did not speak,
+or at least desire to speak, Gaelic for his mother tongue. The action of
+Irish soldiers was thwarted and frustrated by the action of a very few
+separatists, with a very small expense to themselves in bloodshed. But
+the tribute to the work of the Gaelic League is that Ireland accepted
+them and rejected us. None can deny that it has been a potent stimulus
+to national education; and it only lacks official prohibition by the
+British Government to become more powerful still.
+
+Whatever the outcome, I take back nothing of what is written in these
+papers concerning the Gaelic revival. In a country governed against the
+will of its people, forces that, under normal and healthy conditions,
+would be purely beneficent, may easily grow explosive and disruptive.
+Yet I have not changed my mind on a critical question which led me to
+sever my connection with the work of the Gaelic League. When that body
+decided to rely on compulsion rather than persuasion, it took the wrong
+road, if its object was to endear the Irish language to all Ireland, and
+to induce all Irishmen to cherish it as part of the common national
+heritage. As a result Ulstermen have a perfect right to say that if they
+accepted Home Rule, one of the first steps of an Irish government formed
+under the present auspices would be to demand a knowledge of Gaelic as
+the necessary qualification for holding any public office.
+
+I do not believe that this tribal idealism which is now so potent will
+endure. It is out of harmony with the world's development--a world which
+in order to preserve the very principle of small nationalities, is
+growing more and more international. America is not only a nation, but
+is the type of the modern nation--bound together less by what it
+inherits from the past, than by what it hopes from the future.
+
+The other force which has been operating through these years is, in a
+sense, obliged to give the lie to the pretensions of the Gaelic League.
+Yeats and Synge have showed how completely it is possible to be Irish
+while using the English language. They have accepted the fact that
+Ireland to-day thinks in English, but they have endeavoured to give to
+Ireland a distinctively Irish thought, coloured by the whole racial
+tradition and temperament. With them has been allied a personality not
+less Irish, yet less obviously Irish--"A.E.," George Russell. Between
+them, these writers and thinkers have profoundly influenced the mind of
+the generation younger than themselves. It is not possible to deny that
+Ireland's literary output during those last twenty years is far more
+important and serious than that of the whole preceding century. The only
+part of it exempt from these influences is the work of Edith Somerville
+and Martin Ross; and even that is based on a closer study of
+distinctively Irish speech than had ever been attempted in earlier days.
+The propagandist work of Pearse and Arthur Griffiths--equal in merit to
+that of their forerunners, Davis and Mitchel--was Irish only in
+substance and spirit, not in form or accent--a thing the less
+surprising, since both men were only half Irish by parentage. But the
+whole group of writers, of whom it may be said that their writings are
+almost as unmistakably Irish as the work of Burns is Scotch, have
+followed Mr. Yeats and Synge in this, that in writing they assume an
+Irish public, not an English one; they make no explanations, they speak
+as to those who share their own inheritance. In this group has been
+fostered a spirit of the freedom which belongs properly to art. Thus the
+school, for it may justly be called a school, has created its own
+tradition, and it has been a tradition of freedom, not asserted but
+exercised: a freedom, not as against England, but as against all the
+world. Everywhere, but especially in countries undergoing revolutionary
+change, there is a tyranny of the crowd. When the Gaelic League decided
+to make the learning of Irish compulsory, it attorned to this tyranny.
+On the other hand, Mr. Yeats, at a moment when the Abbey Theatre seemed
+about to become popular, was threatened by a fiat of this
+mob-dictatorship; he was told that his theatre must become unpopular
+unless he would throw overboard most of Synge's work. By the stand which
+he then made he did a greater service to freedom of the mind in Ireland
+than has yet been at all recognised; he helped to make his country
+fearless and strong. Thanks mainly to him and to those who worked with
+him, Ireland's thought is freer and more outspoken; there is more
+thought in Ireland than there used to be. This does not make the country
+easier to govern, and just now, Ireland, if given the opportunity, would
+have a hard task to govern itself. But Ireland would not be the only
+country in the world in that predicament. The schoolmaster has been
+abroad, and where you have education without liberty there is bound to
+be trouble. The only cure is, not to suppress education, but to give the
+responsibility of freedom.
+
+I have left these papers in order as they were written, with dates
+annexed. One of them, _Literature among the Illiterates_, was published
+in an earlier volume, _To-day and To-morrow in Ireland_ which is now out
+of print. I include it here, because it completes the companion essay,
+called _The Life of a Song_.
+
+My acknowledgments are due to the various publications in which they
+have all, except the last, previously appeared.
+
+<sc>Dublin</sc>, _March_, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS OF IRISH LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+"What Ireland wants," said an old gentleman not very long ago, "is a
+Walter Scott." The remedy did not seem very practical, since Walter
+Scotts will not come to order, but the point of view is worth noting,
+for there you touch the central fact about Irish literature. We desire a
+Walter Scott that he may glorify our annals, popularise our legends,
+describe our scenery, and give an attractive view of the national
+character. In short, we know that Ireland possesses pre-eminently the
+quality of picturesqueness, and we should like to see it turned to good
+account. We want a Walter Scott to advertise Ireland, and to fill the
+hotels with tourists; but as for desiring to possess a great novelist
+simply for the distinction of the thing, probably no civilised people on
+earth is more indifferent to the matter. At present, indeed, a Walter
+Scott, should he appear in Ireland, would be apt to have a cold welcome.
+To write on anything connected with Irish history is inevitably to
+offend the Press of one party, and very probably of both. Lever is less
+of a caricaturist than Dickens, yet Dickens is idolised while Lever has
+been bitterly blamed for lowering Irish character in the eyes of the
+world; the charge is even repeated in the _Dictionary of National
+Biography_. That may be patriotic sentiment, but it is not criticism.
+
+Literature in Ireland, in short, is almost inextricably connected with
+considerations foreign to art; it is regarded as a means, not as an end.
+During the nineteenth century the belief being general among all classes
+of Irish people that the English know nothing of Ireland, every book on
+an Irish subject was judged by the effect it was likely to have upon
+English opinion, to which the Irish are naturally sensitive, since it
+decides the most important Irish questions. But apart from this
+practical aspect of the matter, there is a morbid national sensitiveness
+which desires to be consulted. Ireland, though she ought to count
+herself amply justified of her children, is still complaining that she
+is misunderstood among the nations; she is for ever crying out for
+someone to give her keener sympathy, fuller appreciation, and exhibit
+herself and her grievances to the world in a true light. The result is
+that kind of insincerity and special pleading which has been the curse
+of Irish or Anglo-Irish literature. I write of a literature which has
+its natural centre in Dublin, not in Connemara; which looks eastward,
+not westward. That literature begins with the _Drapier Letters_: it
+continues through the great line of orators in whom the Irish genius (we
+say nothing of the Celtic) has found its highest expression; and it
+produced its first novelist, perhaps also its best, in the unromantic
+person of Maria Edgeworth.
+
+Miss Edgeworth had a sound instinct for her art, disfigured though her
+later writings are by what Madame de Stael called her _triste utilite_.
+Her first story is her most artistic production. _Castle Rackrent_ is
+simply a pleasant satire upon the illiterate and improvident gentry who
+have always been too common in her country. In this book she holds no
+brief; she never stops to preach; her moral is implied, not expressed. A
+historian might, it is true, go to _Castle Rackrent_ for information
+about the conditions of land tenure as well as about social life in the
+Ireland of that day; but the erudition is part and parcel of her story.
+Throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, setting aside great towns,
+the main interest of life for all classes is the possession of land.
+Irish peasants seldom marry for love, they never murder for love; but
+they marry and they murder for land. To know something of the
+land-question is indispensable for an Irish novelist, and Miss Edgeworth
+graduated with honours in this subject. She was her father's agent; when
+her brother succeeded to the property she resigned, but in the troubles
+of 1830 she was recalled to the management, and saved the estate.
+_Castle Rackrent_ is, therefore, like Galt's _Annals of the Parish_, a
+historical document; but it is none the worse story for that. The
+narrative is put dramatically into the mouth of old Thady, a lifelong
+servant of the family. Thady's son, Jason Quirk, attorney and agent to
+the estate, has dispossessed the Rackrents; but Thady is still "poor
+Thady," and regards the change with horror. Before recounting the
+history of his own especial master and patron, Sir Condy Rackrent, last
+of the line, Thady gives his ingenuous account of the three who
+previously bore the name; Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, and Sir Kit. Sir
+Patrick, the inventor of raspberry whiskey, died at table: "Just as the
+company rose to drink his health with three cheers, he fell down in a
+sort of fit, and was carried off; they sat it out, and were surprised in
+the morning to find that it was all over with poor Sir Patrick." That
+no gentleman likes to be disturbed after dinner, was the best recognised
+rule of life in Ireland; if your host happened to have a fit, you knew
+he would wish you to sit it out. Gerald Griffin in _The Collegians_
+makes the same point with his usual vigour. A shot is heard in the
+dining-room by the maids downstairs. They are for rushing in, but the
+manservant knows better: "Sure, don't you know, if there was anyone shot
+the master would ring the bell." After Sir Patrick, who thus lived and
+died, to quote his epitaph, "a monument of old Irish hospitality," came
+Sir Murtagh, "who was a very learned man in the law, and had the
+character of it"; another passion that seems to go with the land-hunger
+in Ireland. Sir Murtagh married one of the family of the Skinflints:
+"She was a strict observer for self and servants of Lent and all fast
+days, but not holidays." However, says Thady (is there not a strong
+trace of Swift in all this?).
+
+     "However, my lady was very charitable in her own way. She had a
+     charity school for poor children, where they were taught to read
+     and write gratis, and where they were well kept to spinning gratis
+     for my lady in return; for she had always heaps of duty yarn from
+     the tenants, and got all her household linen out of the estate from
+     first to last; for after the spinning, the weavers on the estate
+     took it in hand for nothing, because of the looms my lady's
+     interest could get from the Linen Board to distribute gratis....
+     Her table the same way, kept for next to nothing; duty fowls, and
+     duty turkeys, and duty geese came as fast as we could eat them, for
+     my lady kept a sharp look-out and knew to a tub of butter
+     everything the tenants had all round.... As for their young pigs,
+     we had them, and the best bacon and hams they could make up, with
+     all young chickens in the spring; but they were a set of poor
+     wretches, and we had nothing but misfortunes with them, always
+     breaking and running away. This, Sir Murtagh and my lady said, was
+     all their former landlord, Sir Patrick's fault, who let 'em get the
+     half year's rent into arrear; there was something in that, to be
+     sure. But Sir Murtagh was as much the contrary way--"
+
+I have abridged my lady's methods, and I omit Sir Murtagh's, who taught
+his tenants, as he said, to know the law of landlord and tenant. But,
+"though a learned man in the law, he was a little too incredulous in
+other matters." He neglected his health, broke a blood-vessel in a rage
+with my lady, and so made way for Sir Kit the prodigal. Sir Kit was shot
+in a duel, and Sir Condy came into an estate which, between Sir
+Murtagh's law-suits and Sir Kit's gaming, was considerably embarrassed;
+indeed, the story proper is simply a history of makeshifts to keep rain
+and bailiffs out of the family mansion. Poor Sir Condy; he was the very
+moral of the man who is no man's enemy but his own, and was left at the
+last with no friend but old Thady. Even Judy Quirk turned against him,
+forgetting his goodness in tossing up between her and Miss Isabella
+Moneygawl, the romantic lady who eloped with him after the toss. She
+deserted before Judy; here is a bit of the final scene. Thady was going
+upstairs with a slate to make up a window-pane.
+
+     "This window was in the long passage, or gallery, as my lady gave
+     orders to have it called, in the gallery leading up to my master's
+     bedchamber and hers. And when I went up with the slate, the door
+     having no lock, and the bolt spoilt, was ajar after Mrs. Jane (my
+     lady's maid), and as I was busy with the window, I heard all that
+     was saying within. 'Well, what's in your letter, Bella, my dear?'
+     says he. 'You're a long time spelling it over.' 'Won't you shave
+     this morning, Sir Condy?' says she, and put the letter into her
+     pocket. 'I shaved the day before yesterday,' says he, 'my dear, and
+     that's not what I'm thinking of now; but anything to oblige you,
+     and to have peace and quietness, my dear,'--and presently I had the
+     glimpse of him at the cracked glass over the chimney-piece,
+     standing up shaving himself to please my lady."
+
+However, the quarrel comes on in a delightful scene, where Sir Condy
+shows himself at all events an amiable gentleman; and so my lady goes
+home to her own people. There you have Miss Edgeworth at her very best;
+and, indeed, _Castle Rackrent_ received such a tribute as no other novel
+ever had paid to it. Many people have heard how when _Waverley_ came to
+the Edgeworth household, Mr. Edgeworth, after his custom, read it aloud
+almost, as it would appear, at one sitting. When the end came for that
+fascinated circle, amid the chorus of exclamations, Mr. Edgeworth said:
+"What is this? _Postscript which ought to have been a preface_." Then
+there was a chorus of protests that he should not break the spell with
+prose. "Anyhow," he said, "let us hear what the man has to say," and so
+read on to the passage where Scott explained that he desired to do for
+Scotland what had been done for Ireland: "to emulate the admirable
+fidelity of Miss Edgeworth's portraits." What Maria Edgeworth felt we
+know from the letter she posted off "to the Author of 'Waverley,' _Aut
+Scotus aut Diabolus_."
+
+It would be unkind to compare Scott with his model. For the poetry and
+the tragic power of his novels one would never think of looking in Miss
+Edgeworth. Her work is compact of observation; yet the gifts she has are
+not to be under-valued. She is mistress of a kindly yet searching
+satire, real wit, a fine vein of comedy; and she can rise to such true
+pathos as dignifies the fantastic figure of King Corny in _Ormond_,
+perhaps the best thing she ever did. But she had in her father a
+literary adviser, not of the negative but of the positive order, and
+there never was a more fully developed prig than Richard Edgeworth. His
+view of literature was purely utilitarian; to convey practical lessons
+was the business of all superior persons, more particularly of an
+Edgeworth. In _Castle Rackrent_ his suggestions and comments are happily
+relegated to the position of notes; in the other books they form part
+and parcel of the novel. _The Absentee_, for instance, contains
+admirable dialogue and many life-like figures; but the scheme of the
+story conveys a sense of unreality. Every fault or vice has its
+counterbalancing virtue represented. Lady Clonbroney, vulgarly ashamed
+of her country, is set off by the patriotic Lady Oranmore; the virtuous
+Mr. Burke forms too obvious a pendant to the rascally agents old Nick
+and St. Dennis. It is needless to say that the exclusively virtuous
+people are deadly dull. It is the novel with a purpose written by a
+novelist whose strength lies in the delineation of character. Miss
+Edgeworth can never carry you away with her story, as Charles Reade
+sometimes can, and make you forget and forgive the virtuous intention.
+
+What was unreal in Miss Edgeworth became mere insincerity in her
+contemporary, Lady Morgan. Few people could tell you now where Thackeray
+got Miss Glorvina O'Dowd's baptismal name; yet _The Wild Irish Girl_ had
+a great triumph in its day, and Glorvina stood sponsor to the milliners'
+and haberdashers' inventions ninety years before the apotheosis of
+Trilby. _O'Donnell_, which is counted Lady Morgan's best novel, gives a
+lively ideal portrait of the authoress, first as the governess-grub,
+then transformed by marriage into the butterfly-duchess. But the book is
+a thinly-disguised political pamphlet. "Look," she says in effect, "at
+the heroic virtues of O'Donnell, the young Irishman, driven to serve in
+foreign armies, despoiled of his paternal estates by the penal laws;
+look at the fidelity, the simplicity, the native humour (so dramatically
+effective) of his servant Rory; and then say if you will not plump for
+Catholic Emancipation." "My dear lady," the reader murmurs, "I wondered
+why you were so set upon underlining all these things. Can you not tell
+us a story frankly, and let us alone with your conclusions?"
+
+Unfortunately, very much the same has to be said of a far greater
+writer, William Carleton, even in those tales which are based upon his
+own most intimate experience. _The Poor Scholar_, his most popular
+story, proceeds directly from an episode in his own life. He had himself
+been a poor scholar, had set out from his northern home to walk to
+Munster, where the best known schools were, trusting to charity by the
+way to lodge him, and to charity to keep him throughout his schooling
+for the sake of his vocation, and for the blessing sure to descend upon
+those who aided a peasant's son to become a priest. Nothing could be
+more vivid than the early scenes, the collection made at the altar for
+Jimmy McEvoy, the priest's sermon, the boy's parting from home, and the
+roadside hospitality; there is one infinitely touching episode in the
+house of the first farmer who shelters him. Then come the school itself,
+and the tyranny of its master, till the boy falls sick of a fever, and
+is turned out of doors. Then, alas, the conventional intervenes in the
+person of the virtuous absentee ignorant of his agent's misdoings: the
+long arm of coincidence is stretched to the uttermost; and we have to
+wade through pages of discussion upon the relations of landlord and
+tenant till we are put wholly out of tune for the beautiful scene of
+Jimmy's return home in his priestly dress.
+
+Carleton did for the peasantry what Miss Edgeworth had done for the
+upper classes. In her books the peasants have only an incidental part,
+and she describes them shrewdly and sympathetically enough, but with a
+mind untouched either by their faith or by their superstitions; seeing
+their good and bad qualities clearly in a dry light, but never in
+imagination identifying herself with them. Superior to Miss Edgeworth in
+power and insight, he is immeasurably her inferior in literary skill.
+One should remember, in commenting upon the poverty of Irish literature
+in English, that, so far as concerns imaginative work, it began in the
+nineteenth century. Carleton only died in 1869, Miss Edgeworth in 1849;
+and before them there is no one.
+
+On the other hand the speech of Lowland Scots, with whose richness in
+masterpieces our poverty is naturally contrasted, has been employed for
+literature as long as the vernacular English. A king of Scotland wrote
+admirable verse in the generation after Chaucer; the influence of the
+Court fostered poetry, and the close intercourse with France kept Scotch
+writers in touch with first-rate models. Dunbar, strolling as a friar in
+France, may have known Villon, whom he often resembles. In Ireland, till
+a century ago, English was as much a foreign language as Norman French
+in England under the Plantagenets. Among the English Protestants,
+settled in Ireland, and separated by a hard line of cleavage from the
+Catholic population, there arose great men in letters, Goldsmith, Burke,
+Sheridan, who showed their Irish temperament in their handling of
+English themes. But in Ireland itself, before the events of 1782 added
+importance to Dublin, there was no centre for a literature to gather
+round. Such national pride as exists in English-speaking Ireland dates
+from the days of Grattan and Flood. And Irish national aspirations still
+bear the impress of their origin amid that period of political turmoil,
+than which nothing is more hostile to the brooding care of literary
+workmanship, the long labour and the slow result. Irishmen have always
+shown a strong disinclination to pure literature. The roll of Irish
+novelists is more than half made up of women's names; Miss Edgeworth,
+Lady Morgan, Miss Emily Lawless, and Miss Jane Barlow. Journalists
+Ireland has produced as copiously as orators; the writers of _The Spirit
+of the Nation_, that admirable collection of stirring poems, are
+journalists working in verse; and Carleton, falling under their
+influence, became a journalist working in fiction. In his pages, even
+when the debater ceases to argue and harangue, the style is still
+journalistic, except in those passages where his dramatic instinct puts
+living speech into the mouths of men and women. Politics so monopolise
+the minds of Irishmen, newspapers so make up their whole reading, that
+the class to which Carleton and the poet Mangan belonged have never
+fully entered upon the heritage of English literature. If an English
+peasant knows nothing else, he knows the Bible and very likely Bunyan;
+but a Roman Catholic population has little commerce with that pure
+fountain of style. Genius cannot dispense with models, and Carleton and
+Mangan had the worst possible. Yet when it has been said that Carleton
+was a half-educated peasant, writing in a language whose best literature
+he had not sufficiently assimilated to feel the true value of words, it
+remains to be said that he was a great novelist. He cannot be fairly
+illustrated by quotation; but read any of his stories and see if he does
+not bring up vividly before you Ireland as it was before the famine;
+Ireland still swarming with beggars who marched about in families
+subsisting chiefly on the charity of the poor; Ireland of which the
+hedge-school was plainly to him the most characteristic institution.
+
+Carleton does not stand by himself; he is the head and representative of
+a whole class of Irish novelists, among whom John Banim is the best
+known name. All of them were peasants who aimed at depicting scenes of
+peasant life from their own experience. What one may call the
+melodramatic Irish story, in which Lever was so brilliantly successful,
+has its first famous example in _The Collegians_ of Gerald Griffin. The
+novel has no concern with college life, and is far better described by
+its stage-title, _The Colleen Bawn_. Here at least is a man with a story
+to tell and no object but to tell it. Griffin belonged to the lay order
+of Christian Brothers: his book deals principally with a society no more
+familiar to him than was the household of Mr. Rochester to Charlotte
+Bronte; and his method recalls the Brontes by its strenuous imagination
+and its vehement painting of passion. The tale was suggested by a murder
+which excited all Ireland. A young southern squire carried off a girl
+with some money, and procured her death by drowning. He was arrested at
+his mother's house and a terrible scene took place, terribly rendered in
+the book. Griffin, of course, changes the motive; the girl is carried
+off not for money but for love, and she is sacrificed to make way for a
+stronger passion. Eily O'Connor, the victim, is a pretty and pathetic
+figure; the hero-villain Hardress Cregan, and the mother who indirectly
+causes the crime, are effective though melodramatic; but the actual
+murderer, Danny the Lord, Hardress Cregan's familiar, is worthy of Scott
+or Hugo.
+
+In his sketches of society, Hyland Creagh, the duellist, old Cregan, and
+the rest, Griffin is describing a state of affairs previous to his own
+experience, the Ireland of Sir Jonah Barrington's memoirs; he is not, as
+were Carleton and Miss Edgeworth, copying minutely from personal
+observation. Herein he resembles Lever who, when all is said and done,
+remains the chief, as he is the most Irish, of Irish novelists. It is
+true that Lever had two distinct manners: and in his later books he
+deals chiefly with contemporary society, drawing largely on his
+experiences of diplomatic life. Like most novelists he preferred his
+later work; but the books by which he is best known, _Harry Lorrequer_
+and the rest, are his earliest productions; and though his maturer skill
+was employed on different subjects, he formed his imagination in studies
+of the Napoleonic Wars and of a duelling, drinking, bailiff-beating
+Ireland. His point of view never altered, and the peculiar attraction of
+his writings is always the same. Lever's books have the quality rather
+of speech than of writing; wherever you open the pages there is always a
+witty, well-informed Irishman discoursing to you, who tells his story
+admirably, when he has one to tell, and, failing that, never fails to be
+pleasant. Irish talk is apt to be discursive; to rely upon a general
+charm diffused through the whole, rather than upon any quotable
+brilliancy; its very essence is spontaneity, high spirits, fertility of
+resource. That is a fair description of Lever. He is never at a loss. If
+his story hangs, off he goes at score with a perfectly irrelevant
+anecdote, but told with such enjoyment of the joke that you cannot
+resent the digression. Indeed the plots are left pretty much to take
+care of themselves; he positively preferred to write his stories in
+monthly instalments for a magazine; he is not a conscientious artist,
+but he lays himself out to amuse you, and he does it. If he advertises a
+character as a wit, he does not labour phrases to describe his
+brilliancy; he produces the witticisms. He has been accused of
+exaggeration. As regards the incidents, one can only say that the
+memoirs of Irish society at the beginning of this century furnish at
+least fair warranty for any of his inventions. In character-drawing he
+certainly overcharged the traits: but he did so with intention, and by
+consistently heightening the tones throughout obtained an artistic
+impression, which had life behind it, however ingeniously travestied.
+His stories have no unity of action, but through a great diversity of
+characters and incidents they maintain their unity of treatment. That is
+not the highest ideal of the novel, but it is an intelligible one, not
+lacking famous examples; and Lever perfectly understood it.
+
+If one wishes to realise how good an artist Lever was, the best way is
+to read his contemporary Samuel Lover. _Handy Andy_ appeared somewhat
+later than _Harry Lorrequer_. It is just the difference between good
+whiskey and bad whiskey; both are indigenous and therefore
+characteristic, but let us be judged by our best. Obviously the men have
+certain things in common; great natural vivacity, and an easy cheerful
+way of looking at life. Lover can raise a laugh, but his wit is
+horseplay except for a few happy phrases. He has no real comedy; there
+is nothing in _Handy Andy_ half so ingenious as the story in _Jack
+Hinton_ of the way Ulick Bourke acquitted himself of his debt to Father
+Tom. And behind all Lever's conventional types there is a real fund of
+observation and knowledge which is absolutely wanting in Lover, who
+simply lacked the brains to be anything more than a trifler.
+
+A very different talent was that of their younger contemporary J.
+Sheridan Le Fanu. The author of _Uncle Silas_ had plenty of solid power;
+but his art was too highly specialised. No one ever succeeded better in
+two main objects of the story-teller; first, in exciting interest, in
+stimulating curiosity by vague hints of some dreadful mystery; and then
+in concentrating attention upon a dramatic scene. It is true that,
+although an Irishman, he gained his chief successes with stories that
+had an English setting; but one of the best, _The House by the
+Churchyard_, describes very vividly life at Chapelizod in the days when
+this deserted little village, which lies just beyond the Phoenix Park,
+was thickly peopled with the families of officers stationed in Dublin.
+Yet somehow one does not carry away from the reading of it any picture
+of that society; the story is so exciting that the mind has no time to
+rest on details, but hurries on from clue to clue till finally and
+literally the murder is out. Books which keep a reader on the
+tenter-hooks of conjecture must always suffer from this undue
+concentration of the interest; and in spite of cheery, inquisitive Dr.
+Toole, and the remarkable sketch of Black Dillon, the ruffianly genius
+with a reputation only recognised in the hospitals and the police-courts
+(a character admirably invented and admirably used in the plot) one can
+hardly class Le Fanu among those novelists who have left memorable
+presentments of Irish life. It is a pity; for plainly, if the man had
+cared less for sensational incident and ingenious construction, he might
+have sketched life and character with a strong brush and a kind of grim
+realism.
+
+Realism Lever does not aim at: he declines to be on his oath about
+anything. What he gives one, vividly enough, is national colour, not
+local colour; he is essentially Irish, just as Fielding is essentially
+English; but he aims at verisimilitude rather than veracity. The ideal
+of the novel has changed since his day. Compare him with the two ladies
+who stand out prominently among contemporary writers of Irish fiction,
+Miss Jane Barlow and Miss Emily Lawless. To begin with, Lever's stories
+are always concerned with the Quality; peasants only come in for an
+underplot, or in subordinate parts; and the gentry all through Ireland
+resemble one another within reasonable limits. It is different with the
+peasantry. In every part of Ireland you will find people who have never
+been ten miles away from the place of their birth, and upon whom a local
+character is unmistakably stamped. The contemporary novelists delight to
+mark these differences, these salient points of singularity; and their
+studies are chiefly of the peasantry. They settle down upon some little
+corner of the country and never stir out of it. Miss Lawless is not
+content to get you Irish character; she must show you a Clare man or an
+Arran islander, and she is at infinite pains to point out how his
+nature, even his particular actions, are influenced by the place of his
+bringing up. Lever avoids this specialisation; he prefers a stone wall
+country for his hunting scenes, but beyond that he goes no further into
+details. Again Miss Lawless both in _Grania_ and in _Hurrish_ makes you
+aware that young Irishmen of Hurrish's class are curiously indifferent
+to female beauty. Lever will have none of that: his Irishman must be "a
+divil with the girls," although Lever is no sentimentalist, and does not
+talk of love matches among the Irish peasantry.
+
+The greatest divergence of all, however, is in the temper attributed to
+the Irish. Lever makes them gay, Miss Lawless and Miss Barlow make them
+sad. No one denies that sadness is nearer the reality, but it is
+unreasonable to call Lever insincere. Naturally careless and
+lighthearted he does not trouble himself with the riddle of the painful
+world; the distress which touches him most nearly is a distress for
+debt. But if Lever is not realistic he is natural; he follows the law
+of his nature as an artist should; he sees life through his own medium;
+and if books are to be valued as companions, not many of them are better
+company than _Charles O'Malley_ or _Lord Kilgobbin_; for first and last
+Lever was always himself.
+
+Yet, I must own it, it does not do to read Lever soon after Miss Barlow.
+Her stories of Lisconnel and its folk have a tragic dignity wholly out
+of his range. It is a sad-coloured country she writes of, gray and
+brown; sodden brown with bog water, gray with rock cropping up through
+the fields; the only brightness is up overhead in the heavens, and even
+they are often clouded. These sombre hues, with the passing gleam of
+something above them, reflect themselves in every page of her books. She
+renders that complete harmony between the people and their surroundings
+which is only seen in working folk whose clothes are stained with the
+colour of the soil they live by, and whose lives assimilate themselves
+to its character. She has a fineness of touch, a poetry, to which no
+other Irish story-teller has attained.
+
+Yet, Miss Barlow has never succeeded with a regular novel: and she may
+have been only a forerunner. All great writers proceed from a school,
+and there does exist now undeniably a school of Irish literature which
+differs from Miss Edgeworth in being strongly tinged with the element of
+Celtic romance, from Carleton in possessing an admirable standard of
+style, and from Lever in aiming at a sincere and vital portraiture of
+Irish life.
+
+1897.
+
+
+
+
+A CENTURY OF IRISH HUMOUR.
+
+
+In a preface to the French translation of Sienkiewicz's works, M. de
+Wyzewa, the well-known critic, himself a Pole, makes a suggestive
+comparison between the Polish and the Russian natures. The Pole, he
+says, is quicker, wittier, more imaginative, more studious of beauty,
+less absorbed in the material world than the Russian--in a word,
+infinitely more gifted with the artistic temperament; and yet in every
+art the Russian has immeasurably outstripped the Pole. His explanation,
+if not wholly convincing, is at least suggestive. The Poles are a race
+of dreamers, and the dreamer finds his reward in himself. He does not
+seek to conquer the world with arms or with commerce, with tears or with
+laughter; neither money tempts him nor fame, and the strenuous,
+unremitting application which success demands, whether in war, business,
+or the arts, is alien to his being.
+
+The same observation and the same reasoning apply with equal force to
+the English and the Irish. No one who has lived in the two countries
+will deny that the Irish are apparently the more gifted race; no one can
+deny, if he has knowledge and candour, that the English have
+accomplished a great deal more, the Irish a great deal less. Nowhere is
+this more evident than in the productions of that faculty which Irishmen
+have always been reputed, and justly reputed, to possess in peculiar
+measure--the faculty of humour. Compare Lever, who for a long time
+passed as the typical Irish humorist, with his contemporaries Thackeray
+and Dickens. The comparison is not fair, but it suggests the central
+fact that the humour of Irish literature is deficient in depth, in
+intellectual quality, or, to put it after an Irish fashion, in gravity.
+
+'Humorous' is a word as question-begging as 'artistic,' and he would be
+a rash man who should try to define either. But so much as this will
+readily be admitted, that humour is a habit of mind essentially complex,
+involving always a double vision--a reference from the public or normal
+standard of proportion to one that is private and personal. The humorist
+refuses to part with any atom of his own personality, he stamps it on
+whatever comes from him. "If reasons were as plenty as blackberries,"
+says Falstaff, achieving individuality by the same kind of odd
+picturesque comparison as every witty Irish peasant uses in talk, to the
+delight of himself and his hearers. But the individuality lies deeper
+than phrases: Falstaff takes his private standard into battle with him.
+There is nothing more obviously funny than the short paunchy man, let us
+not say cowardly, but disinclined to action, who finds himself engaged
+in a fight. Lever has used him a score of times (beginning with Mr.
+O'Leary in the row at a gambling-hall in Paris), and whether he runs or
+whether he fights, his efforts to do either are grotesquely laughable.
+Shakespeare puts that view of Falstaff too: Prince Hal words it. But
+Falstaff, the humorist in person, rises on the field of battle over the
+slain Percy and enunciates his philosophy of the better part of valour.
+Falstaff's estimate of honour--"that word honour" ("Who hath it? he that
+died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it?"), the "grinning honour" that Sir
+Walter Blunt wears where the Douglas left him--is necessary to complete
+the humorist's vision of a battle-piece. Lever will scarcely visit you
+with such reflections, for the humorist of Lever's type never stands
+apart and smiles; he laughs loud and in company. Still less will he give
+you one of those speeches which are the supreme achievement of this
+faculty, where the speaker's philosophy is not reasoned out liked
+Falstaff's, but revealed in a flash of the onlooker's insight. Is it
+pardonable to quote the account of Falstaff's death as the hostess
+narrates it?
+
+     "How now, Sir John, quoth I, what, man! be of good cheer. So a'
+     cried out God, God, three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid
+     him a' should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to
+     trouble himself with any such thoughts yet."
+
+Humour can go no farther than that terrible, illuminating phrase, which
+is laughable enough, heaven knows, but scarce likely to make you laugh.
+Contrast the humour of that with the humour of such a story as Lever
+delighted in. There were two priests dining with a regiment, we all have
+read in _Harry Lorrequer_, who chaffed a dour Ulster Protestant till he
+was the open derision of the mess. Next time they returned, the
+Protestant major was radiant with a geniality that they could not
+explain till they had to make their way out of barracks in a hurry, and
+found that the countersign (arranged by the major) was "Bloody end to
+the Pope." Told as Lever tells it, with all manner of jovial
+amplifications, that story would make anyone laugh. But it does not go
+deep. The thing is funny in too obvious a way; the mirth finds too large
+an outlet in laughter; it does not hang about the brain, inextricable
+from the processes of thought; it carries nothing with it beyond the
+jest. And just as tears help to an assuaging of grief, so in a sense
+laughter makes an end of mirth. Give a feeling its instinctive vent, and
+you will soon be done with it, like the child who laughs and cries
+within five minutes; check it, and it spreads inward, gaining in
+intellectual quality as it loses in physical expression. The moral is,
+that if you wish to be really humorous you must not be too funny; and
+the capital defect of most Irish humour is that its aim is too
+simple--it does not look beyond raising a laugh.
+
+There are brilliant exceptions in the century that lies between Sheridan
+and Mr. Bernard Shaw, between Maria Edgeworth and Miss Barlow. But
+serious art or serious thought in Ireland has always revealed itself to
+the English sooner or later as a species of sedition, and the Irish have
+with culpable folly allowed themselves to accept for characteristic
+excellences what were really the damning defects of their work--an easy
+fluency of wit, a careless spontaneity of laughter. They have taken
+Moore for a great poet, and Handy Andy for a humorist to be proud of.
+Yet an Irishman who wishes to speak dispassionately must find humour of
+a very different kind from that of _Handy Andy_ or _Harry Lorrequer_
+either, to commend without reserve, as a thing that may be put forward
+to rank with what is best in other literatures.
+
+Taking Sheridan and Miss Edgeworth as marking the point of departure, it
+becomes obvious that one is an end, the other at a beginning. Sheridan
+belongs body and soul to the eighteenth century; Miss Edgeworth, though
+her name sounds oddly in that context, is part and parcel of the
+romantic movement. The "postscript which ought to have been a preface"
+to _Waverley_ declared, though after Scott's magnificent fashion, a real
+indebtedness. Sheridan's humour, essentially metropolitan, had found no
+use for local colour; Miss Edgeworth before Scott proved the artistic
+value that could be extracted from the characteristics of a special
+breed of people under special circumstances in a special place. Mr.
+Yeats, who, like all poets, is a most suggestive and a most misleading
+critic, has declared that modern Irish literature begins with Carleton.
+That is only true if we are determined to look in Irish literature for
+qualities that can be called Celtic--if we insist that the outlook on
+the world shall be the Catholic's or the peasant's. Miss Edgeworth had
+not a trace of the Celt--as I conceive that rather indefinite
+entity--about her; but she was as good an Irish woman as ever walked,
+and there are hundreds of Irish people of her class and creed looking at
+Irish life with kindly humorous Irish eyes, seeing pretty much what she
+saw, enjoying it as she enjoyed it, but with neither her power nor her
+will to set it down. _Castle Rackrent_ is a masterpiece; and had Miss
+Edgeworth been constant to the dramatic method which she then struck out
+for herself, with all the fine reticences that it involved, her name
+might have stood high in literature. Unhappily, her too exemplary father
+repressed the artist in her, fostered the pedagogue, and in her later
+books she commits herself to an attitude in which she can moralise
+explicitly upon the ethical and social bearings of every word and
+action. The fine humour in _Ormond_ is obscured by its setting; in
+_Castle Rackrent_ the humour shines. Sir Condy and his lady we see none
+the less distinctly for seeing them through the eyes of old Thady, the
+retainer who narrates the Rackrent history; and in the process we have a
+vision of old Thady himself. Now and then the novelist reminds us of her
+presence by some extravagantly ironic touch, as when Thady describes Sir
+Condy's anger with the Government "about a place that was promised him
+and never given, after his supporting them against his conscience very
+honourably and being greatly abused for, he having the name of a great
+patriot in the country." Thady would hardly have been so ingenuous as
+that. But for the most part the humour is truly inherent in the
+situation, and you might look far for a better passage than the
+description of Sir Condy's parting with his lady. But it is better to
+illustrate from a scene perhaps less genuinely humorous, but more
+professedly so--Sir Condy's wake. Miss Edgeworth does not dwell on the
+broad farce of the entertainment; she does not make Thady eloquent over
+the whisky that was drunk and the fighting that began and so forth, as
+Lever or Carleton would certainly have been inclined to do. She fixes on
+the central comedy of the situation, Sir Condy's innocent vanity and its
+pitiable disappointment--is it necessary to recall that he had arranged
+for the wake himself, because he always wanted to see his own funeral?
+Poor Sir Condy!--even Thady, who was in the secret, had forgotten all
+about him, when he was startled by the sound of his master's voice from
+under the greatcoats thrown all atop.
+
+     "'Thady,' says he, 'I've had enough of this; I'm smothering and
+     can't hear a word of all they're saying of the deceased.' 'God
+     bless you, and lie still and quiet a bit longer,' says I, 'for my
+     sister's afraid of ghosts, and would die on the spot with fright if
+     she was to see you come to life all on a sudden this way without
+     the least preparation.' So he lays him still, though well-nigh
+     stifled, and I made haste to tell the secret of the joke,
+     whispering to one and t'other, and there was a great surprise, but
+     not so great as he had laid out there would. 'And aren't we to have
+     the pipes and tobacco after coming so far to-night?' said some one;
+     but they were all well enough pleased when his honour got up to
+     drink with them, and sent for more spirits from a shebeen house
+     where they very civilly let him have it upon credit. So the night
+     passed off very merrily; but to my mind Sir Condy was rather upon
+     the sad order in the midst of it all, not finding there had been
+     such great talk about himself after his death as that he had always
+     expected to hear."
+
+In the end Sir Condy died, not by special arrangement. "He had but a
+poor funeral after all," is Thady's remark; and you see with the kindly
+double vision of the humorist Thady's sincere regret for the
+circumstance that would most have afflicted the deceased, as well as the
+more obviously comic side of Thady's comment and Sir Condy's lifelong
+aspiration. Indeed, the whole narrative is shot with many meanings, and
+one never turns to it without a renewed faculty of laughter.
+
+If it were necessary to compare true humour with the make-believe, a
+comparison might be drawn between Thady and the servant in Lady Morgan's
+novel _O'Donnell_. Rory is the stage Irishman in all his commonest
+attitudes. But it is better to go straight on, and concern ourselves
+solely with the work of real literary quality, and Carleton falls next
+to be considered.
+
+Of genius with inadequate equipment it is always difficult to speak.
+Carleton is the nearest thing to Burns that we have to show; and his
+faults, almost insuperable to the ordinary reader, are the faults which
+Burns seldom failed to display when writing in English. But to Burns
+there was given an instrument perfected by long centuries of use--the
+Scotch vernacular song and ballad; Carleton had to make his own, and the
+genius for form was lacking in him. Some day there may come a man of
+pure Irish race who will be to Carleton what Burns was to Ferguson, and
+then Ireland will have what it lacks; moreover, in the light of his
+achievement we shall see better what the pioneer accomplished. Every
+gift that Carleton had--and pathos and humour, things complementary to
+each other, he possessed in profusion--every gift is obscured by faulty
+technique. Nearly every trait is overcharged; for instance, in his story
+of the _Midnight Mass_ he rings the changes interminably upon the old
+business of the wonderful medicine in the vagrants' blessed horn that
+had a strong odour of whisky; but what an admirably humorous figure is
+this same Darby O'More! Out of the _Poor Scholar_ alone, that inchoate
+masterpiece, you could illustrate a dozen phases of Carleton's mirth,
+beginning with the famous sermon where the priest so artfully wheedles
+and coaxes his congregation into generosity towards the boy who is going
+out on the world, and all the while unconsciously displays his own
+laughable and lovable weaknesses. There you have the double vision, that
+helps to laugh with the priest, and to laugh at him in the same breath,
+as unmistakably as in the strange scene of the famine days where the
+party of mowers find Jimmy sick of the fever by the wayside and "schame
+a day" from their employer to build him a rough shelter. That whole
+chapter, describing the indefatigable industry with which they labour
+on the voluntary task, their glee in the truantry from the labour for
+which they are paid, their casuistry over the theft of milk for the
+pious purpose of keeping the poor lad alive, the odd blending of
+cowardice and magnanimity in their terror of the sickness and in their
+constant care that some one should at least be always in earshot of the
+boy, ready to pass in to him on a long-handed shovel what food they
+could scrape up, their supple ingenuity in deceiving the pompous
+landlord who comes to oversee their work,--all that is the completest
+study in existence of Irish character as it came to be under the system
+of absolute dependence. There is nothing so just as true humour, for by
+the law of its being it sees inevitably two sides; and this strange
+compound of vices and virtues, so rich in all the softer qualities, so
+lacking in all the harder ones, stands there in Carleton's pages,
+neither condemned nor justified, but seen and understood with a kindly
+insight. Carleton is the document of documents for Ireland in the years
+before the famine, preserving a record of conditions material and
+spiritual, which happily have largely ceased to exist, yet operate
+indefinitely as causes among us, producing eternal though eternally
+modifiable effects.
+
+But, for the things in human nature that are neither of yesterday,
+to-day, nor to-morrow, but unchangeable, he has the humorist's true
+touch. When the poor scholar is departing, and has actually torn himself
+away from home, his mother runs after him with a last token--a small
+bottle of holy water. "Jimmy, alanna," said she, "here's this an' carry
+it about you--it will keep evil from you; an' be sure to take good care
+of the written characther you got from the priest an' Squire Benson;
+an', darlin', don't be lookin' too often at the cuff o' your coat, for
+feard the people might get a notion that you have the banknotes sewed in
+it. An', Jimmy agra, don't be too lavish upon their Munsther crame; they
+say 'tis apt to give people the ague. Kiss me agin, agra, an' the
+heavens above keep you safe and well till we see you once more."
+
+Through all that catalogue of precautions, divine and human, one feels
+the mood between tears and laughter of the man who set it down. But I
+think you only come to the truth about Carleton in the last scene of
+all, when Jimmy returns to his home, a priest. Nothing could be more
+stilted, more laboured, than the pages which attempt to render his
+emotions and his words, till there comes the revealing touch. His mother
+at sight of him, returned unlooked-for after the long absence, loses for
+a moment the possession of her faculties, and cannot be restored. At
+last, "I will speak to her," said Jimmy, "in Irish; it will go directly
+to her heart." And it does.
+
+Carleton never could speak to us in Irish; the English was still a
+strange tongue on his lips and in the ears of those he lived among; and
+his work comes down distracted between the two languages, imperfect and
+halting, only with flashes of true and living speech.
+
+When you come to Lever, it is a very different story. Lever was at no
+lack for utterance; nobody was ever more voluble, no one ever less
+inclined to sit and bite his pen, waiting for the one and only word.
+Good or bad, he could be trusted to rattle on; and, as Trollope said, if
+you pulled him out of bed and demanded something witty, he would flash
+it at you before he was half awake. Some people are born with the
+perilous gift of improvisation; and the best that can be said for Lever
+is that he is the nearest equivalent in Irish literature, or in English
+either, to the marvellous faculty of D'Artagnan's creator. He has the
+same exuberance, the same inexhaustible supply of animal spirits, of
+invention that is always spirited, of wit that goes off like fireworks.
+He delighted a whole generation of readers, and one reader at least in
+this generation he still delights; but I own that to enjoy him you must
+have mastered the art of skipping. Whether you take him in his earlier
+manner, in the "Charles O'Malley" vein of adventure, fox-hunting,
+steeple-chasing, Peninsular fighting, or in his later more intellectual
+studies of shady financiers, needy political adventurers, and the whole
+generation of usurers and blacklegs, he is always good; but alas and
+alas, he is never good enough. His work is rotten with the disease of
+anecdote; instead of that laborious concentration on a single character
+which is necessary for any kind of creative work, but above all for
+humorous creation, he presents you with a sketch, a passing glimpse, and
+when you look to see the suggestion followed out he is off at score with
+a story. In the first chapter of _Davenport Dunn_, for instance, there
+is an Irish gentleman on the Continent, a pork-butcher making his first
+experience of Italy, hit off to the life. But a silhouette--and a very
+funny silhouette--is all that we get of Mr. O'Reilly, and the figures
+over whom Lever had taken trouble--for in that work Lever did take
+trouble--are not seen with humour. Directly he began to think, his
+humour left him; it is as if he had been funny in watertight
+compartments. And perhaps that is why, here as elsewhere, he shrank from
+the necessary concentration of thought.
+
+There is always a temptation to hold a brief for Lever, because he has
+been most unjustly censured by Irishmen, even in so august and impartial
+a court as the _Dictionary of National Biography_, as if he had traduced
+his countrymen. Did Thackeray, then, malign the English? The only charge
+that may fairly be brought against him is the one that cannot be
+rebutted--the charge of superficiality and of scamped work, of a humour
+that only plays over the surface of things--a humour which sees only the
+comic side that anybody might see. And because I cannot defend him, I
+say no more. Lever is certainly not a great humorist, but he is
+delightful company.
+
+One may mention in passing the excursions into broad comedy of another
+brilliant Irishman--Le Fanu's short stories in the _Purcell Papers_,
+such as the _Quare Gander_, or _Billy Molowney's Taste of Love and
+Glory_. These are good examples of a particular literary type--the
+humorous anecdote--in which Irish humour has always been fertile, and of
+which the _ne plus ultra_ is Sir Samuel Ferguson's magnificent squib in
+Blackwood, _Father Tom and the Pope_. Everybody knows the merits of that
+story, its inexhaustible fertility of comparison, its dialectic
+ingenuity, its jovialty, its drollery, its Rabelaisian laughter. But,
+after all, the highest type of humour is humour applying itself to the
+facts of life, and this is burlesque humour squandering itself in riot
+upon a delectable fiction. Humour is a great deal more than a
+plaything; it is a force, a weapon--at once sword and shield. If there
+is to be an art of literature in Ireland that can be called national, it
+cannot afford to devote humour solely to the production of trifles.
+_Father Tom_ is a trifle, a splendid toy; and what is more, a trifle
+wrought in a moment of ease by perhaps the most serious and
+conscientious artist that ever made a contribution to the small body of
+real Irish literature in the tongue that is now native to the majority
+of Irishmen.
+
+Of contemporaries, with one exception, I do not propose to speak at any
+length, nor can I hope that my review will be complete. There is first
+and foremost Miss Barlow, a lady whose work is so gentle, so unassuming,
+that one hears little of it in the rush and flare of these strident
+times, but who will be heard and listened to with fresh emotion as the
+stream is heard when the scream and rattle of a railway train have
+passed away into silence. Is she a humorist? Not in the sense of
+provoking laughter--and yet the things that she sees and loves and
+dwells on would be unbearable if they were not seen through a delicate
+mist of mirth. The daily life of people at continual handgrips with
+starvation, their little points of honour, their little questions of
+precedence, the infinite generosity that concerns itself with the
+expenditure of six-pence, the odd shifts they resort to that a gift may
+not have the appearance of charity,--all these are set down with a
+tenderness of laughter that is peculiarly and distinctively Irish.
+
+Yet, though we may find a finer quality of humour in those writers who
+do not seek to raise a laugh--for instance, the subtle pervasive humour
+in Mr. Yeats's _Celtic Twilight_--still there are few greater
+attractions than that of open healthy laughter of the contagious sort;
+and it would be black ingratitude not to pay tribute to the authoresses
+of _Some Experiences of an Irish R.M._--a book that no decorous person
+can read with comfort in a railway carriage. These ladies have the
+keenest eye for the obvious humours of Irish life, they have abundance
+of animal spirits, and they have that knack at fluent description
+embroidered with a wealth of picturesque details that is shared by
+hundreds of peasants in Ireland, but is very rare indeed on the printed
+page. And, mingling with the broad farce there is a deal of excellent
+comedy--for instance, in the person of old Mrs. Knox of Aussolas. But
+there is the same point to insist on--and since these witty and
+delightful ladies have already the applause of all the world one insists
+less unwillingly--this kind of thing, admirable as it is, will not
+redeem Irish humour from the reproach of trifling. But in the novel,
+_The Real Charlotte_, there is humour as grim almost as Swift's--and as
+completely un-English; it is a humour which assuredly stirs more
+faculties than the simple one of laughter.
+
+There is indeed a literature which, if not always exactly humorous, is
+closely allied to it--the literature of satire and invective; and in
+this Ireland has always been prolific. In the days of the old kings the
+order of bards had grown so numerous, that they comprised a third of the
+whole population, and they devoted themselves with such talent and zeal
+to the task of invective that no man could live in peace, and the
+country cried out against them, and there was talk of suppressing the
+whole order. The king spared them on condition that they would mend
+their manners. We have those bards still, but nowadays we call them
+politicians and journalists; and frankly I think we are ripe for another
+intervention, if only in the interests of literature. So much good
+talent goes to waste in bad words; and, moreover, an observance of the
+decencies is always salutary for style. And it seems that as the years
+have gone on, humour has diminished in Irish politics, while bad humour
+has increased; and therefore I leave alone any attempt to survey the
+humour of the orators, though Curran tempts one at the beginning and Mr.
+Healy at the close. Of purely literary satire there has been little
+enough, apart from its emergence in the novel; but there is one example
+which deserves to be recalled. I have never professed enthusiasm for
+Thomas Moore, but I am far indeed from agreeing with a recent critic who
+would claim literary rank for him rather in virtue of the _Fudge Family_
+than of the Irish Melodies. That satire does not seem to get beyond
+brilliancy; it is very clever, and not much more. Still, there are
+passages in it which cannot be read without enjoyment; and one quotation
+may be permitted, since it puts with perfect distinctness what it is
+always permissible to put--the English case against Ireland.
+
+    I'm a plain man who speak the truth.
+      And trust you'll think me not uncivil
+    When I declare that from my youth
+      I've wished your country at the devil.
+    Nor can I doubt indeed from all
+      I've heard of your high patriot fame,
+    From every word your lips let fall,
+      That you most truly wish the same.
+
+    It plagues one's life out; thirty years
+      Have I had dinning in my ears--
+    Ireland wants this and that and t'other;
+      And to this hour one nothing hears
+    But the same vile eternal bother.
+      While of those countless things she wanted,
+    Thank God, but little has been granted.
+
+The list of writers of humorous verse in Ireland is a long one, but a
+catalogue of ephemera. Even Father Prout at this time of day is little
+more than a dried specimen labelled for reference, or at most preserved
+in vitality by the immortal _Groves of Blarney_. But neither that work,
+nor even _The Night before Larry was stretched_, nor Le Fanu's ballad of
+_Shemus O'Brien_, can rank altogether as literature. About the humorous
+song I need only say that, so far as my experience goes, there is one,
+and one only, which a person with no taste for music and some taste for
+literature can hear frequently with pleasure, and that song of course is
+_Father O'Flynn_. To recall the delightful ingenuity and the nimble wit
+shown by another Irishman of the same family in the _Hawarden Horace_,
+and in a lesser degree by Mr. Godley in his _Musa Frivola_, leads
+naturally to the inquiry why humour from Aristophanes to Carlyle has
+always preferred the side of reaction--a question that would need an
+essay, or a volume, all to itself.
+
+But the central question is after all why in a race where humour is so
+preponderant in the racial temperament does so little of the element
+crystallise itself in literature. Humour ranks with the water power as
+one of the great undeveloped resources of the country. Something indeed
+has been done in the past with the river of laughter that almost every
+Irish person has flowing in his heart; but infinitely more might be
+done if these rivers were put in harness.
+
+Yet, take away two Irish names from the field of modern comedy in the
+English language written during the nineteenth century, and you have
+uncommonly little for which literary merit can be claimed. The quality
+of Oscar Wilde's is scarcely disputed. There is the more reason to dwell
+on Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays, because they have not even in the twentieth
+century been fully accepted by that queer folk, the theatre-going
+public. But I never yet heard of anyone who saw _You Never can Tell_,
+and was not amused by it. That was a farce, no doubt, but a farce which
+appealed to emotions less elementary than those which are touched by the
+spectacle of a man sitting down by accident on his hat; it was a farce
+of intellectual absurdities, of grotesque situations arising out of
+perversities of character and opinion; a farce that you could laugh at
+without a loss of self-respect. But it is rather by his comedies than by
+his farces that Mr. Shaw should be judged. If they are not popular, it
+is for a very good reason: Mr. Shaw's humour is too serious. His humour
+is a strong solvent, and one of the many things about which this
+humorist is in deadly earnest is the fetish worship of tradition. To
+that he persists in applying--in _Candida_ as in half a dozen other
+plays--the ordeal by laughter--an ordeal which every human institution
+is bound to face. _Candida_ will not only make people laugh, it will
+make them think; and it is not easy to induce the public to think after
+dinner on unaccustomed lines. They will laugh when they have been used
+to laugh, weep when they have been used to weep; but if you ask them to
+laugh when they expect to weep, or _vice versa_, the public will resent
+the proceeding. The original humorist, like every other original artist,
+has got slowly and laboriously to convert his public before he can
+convince them of his right to find tears and laughter where he can.
+
+Whatever Mr. Shaw touches, whether it be the half-hysterical impulse
+that sometimes passes current for heroism, as in _Arms and the Man_, or,
+as in the _Devil's Disciple_, the conventional picturesqueness of a Don
+Juan--that maker of laws, breaker of hearts, so familiar with the
+limelight, so unused to the illumination by laughter, who finds himself
+in the long run deplorably stigmatised as a saint--there is a flood of
+light let in upon all manner of traditional poses, literary
+insincerities that have crept into life. There are few things of more
+value in a commonwealth than such a searching faculty of laughter. Like
+Sheridan, Mr. Shaw lives in England, and uses his comic gift for the
+most part on subjects suggested to him by English conditions of life,
+but with a strength of intellectual purpose that Sheridan never
+possessed. Irishmen may wish that he found his material in Ireland. But
+an artist must take what his hand finds, and there is no work in the
+world more full of the Scottish spirit or the Scottish humour than
+Carlyle's _French Revolution_. If it be asked whether Mr. Shaw's humour
+is typically Irish, I must reply by another question: "Could his plays
+have conceivably been written by any but an Irishman?"
+
+Is there, in fact, a distinctively Irish humour? In a sense, yes, no
+doubt, just as the English humour is of a different quality from the
+Greek or the French. But nobody wants to pin down English humour to the
+formula of a definition; no one wants to say, Thus far shalt thou go,
+and beyond that shalt cease to be English. Moreover, a leading
+characteristic of the Irish type is just its variety--its continual
+deviation from the normal. How, then, to find a description that will
+apply to a certain quality of mind throughout a variable race; that
+quality being in its essence the most complete expression of an
+individuality, in its difference from other individualities, since a
+man's humour is the most individual thing about him? Description is
+perhaps more possible than definition. One may say that the Irish humour
+is kindly and lavish; that it tends to express itself in an exuberance
+of phrase, a wild riot of comparisons; that it amplifies rather than
+retrenches, finding its effects by an accumulation of traits, and not by
+a concentration. The vernacular Irish literature is there to prove that
+Irish fancy gives too much rather than too little. One may observe,
+again, that a nation laughs habitually over its besetting weakness; and
+if the French find their mirth by preference in dubious adventures, it
+cannot be denied that much Irish humour has a pronounced alcoholic
+flavour. But it is better neither to define nor to describe; there is
+more harmful misunderstanding caused by setting down this or that
+quality, this or that person, as typically French, typically English,
+typically Irish, than by any other fallacy; and we Irish have suffered
+peculiarly by the notion that the typical Irishman is the funny man of
+the empire. What I would permit myself to assert is, first, that the
+truest humour is not just the light mirth that comes easily from the
+lips--that, in the hackneyed phrase, bubbles over spontaneously--but is
+the expression of deep feeling and deep thought, made possible by deep
+study of the means to express it; and secondly, that literature, which
+through the earlier part of last century never received in Ireland the
+laborious brooding care without which no considerable work of art is
+possible, now receives increasingly the artist's labour; and
+consequently that among our later humorists we find a faculty of mirth
+that lies deeper, reaches farther, judges more subtly, calls into light
+a wider complex of relations. After all, laughter is the most
+distinctive faculty of man; and I submit that, so far as literature
+shows, we Irish can better afford to be judged by our laughter now than
+a century ago.
+
+1901.
+
+
+
+
+LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES
+
+I
+
+THE SHANACHY
+
+
+There is nothing better known about Ireland than this fact: that
+illiteracy is more frequent among the Irish Catholic peasantry than in
+any other class of the British population; and that especially upon the
+Irish-speaking peasant does the stigma lie. Yet it is, perhaps, as well
+to inquire a little more precisely what is meant by an illiterate. If to
+be literate is to possess a knowledge of the language, literature, and
+historical traditions of a man's own country--and this is no very
+unreasonable application of the word--then this Irish-speaking peasantry
+has a better claim to the title than can be shown by most bodies of men.
+I have heard the existence of an Irish literature denied by a roomful of
+prosperous educated gentlemen; and, within a week, I have heard, in the
+same county, the classics of that literature recited by an Irish peasant
+who could neither write nor read. On which part should the stigma of
+illiteracy set the uglier brand?
+
+The Gaelic revival sends many of us to school in Irish-speaking
+districts, and, if it did nothing else, at least it would have sent us
+to school in pleasant places among the most lovable preceptors. It was a
+blessed change from London to a valley among hills that look over the
+Atlantic, with its brown stream tearing down among boulders, and its
+heathy banks, where the keen fragrance of bog-myrtle rose as you brushed
+through in the morning on your way to the head of a pool. Here was
+indeed a desirable academy, and my preceptor matched it. A big,
+loose-jointed old man, rough, brownish-gray all over, clothes, hair, and
+face; his cheeks were half-hidden by the traditional close-cropped
+whisker, and the rest was an ill-shorn stubble. Traditional, too, was
+the small, deep-set, blue eye, the large, kindly mouth, uttering English
+with a soft brogue, which, as is always the case among those whose real
+tongue is Irish, had no trace of vulgarity. Indeed, it would have been
+strange that vulgarity of any sort should show in one who had perfect
+manners, and the instinct of a scholar, for this preceptor was not even
+technically illiterate. He could read and write English, and Irish, too,
+which is by no means so common; and I have not often seen a man happier
+than he was over Douglas Hyde's collection of Connacht love-songs, which
+I had fortunately brought with me. But his main interest was in
+history--that history which had been rigorously excluded from his school
+training, the history of Ireland. I would go on ahead to fish a pool,
+and leave him poring over Hyde's book; but when he picked me up,
+conversation went on where it broke off--somewhere among the fortunes of
+Desmonds and Burkes, O'Neills and O'Donnells. And when one had hooked a
+large sea-trout, on a singularly bad day, in a place where no sea-trout
+was expected, it was a little disappointing to find that Charlie's only
+remark, as he swept the net under my capture, was: "The Clancartys was
+great men too. Is there any of them living?" The scholar in him had
+completely got the better of the sportsman.
+
+Beyond his historic lore (which was really considerable, and by no means
+inaccurate) he had many songs by heart, some of them made by Carolan,
+some by nameless poets, written in the Irish which is spoken to-day. I
+wrote down a couple of Charlie's lyrics which had evidently a local
+origin; but what I sought was one of the Shanachies who carried in his
+memory the classic literature of Ireland, the epics or ballads of an
+older day. Charlie was familiar, of course, with the matter of this
+"Ossianic" literature, as we all are, for example, with the story of
+Ulysses. He knew how Oisin dared to go with a fairy woman to her own
+land; how he returned in defiance of her warning; how he found himself
+lonely and broken in a changed land; and how, in the end, he gave in to
+the teaching of St. Patrick ("Sure how would he stand up against it?"
+said Charlie), and was converted to Christ. But all the mass of rhymed
+verse which relates the dialogues between Oisin and Patrick, the tales
+of Finn and his heroes which Oisin told to the Saint, the fierce answers
+with which the old warrior met the Gospel arguments--all this was only
+vaguely familiar to him. I was looking for a man who had it by heart.
+
+The search for the repositories of this knowledge leads sometimes into
+strange contrasts. One friend of mine lay stretched for long hours on
+top of a roof of sticks and peat-scraws which was propped against the
+wall of a ruined cabin, while within the evicted tenant, still clinging
+to his home as life clings to the shattered body, lay bedridden on a
+lair of rushes, and chanted the deeds of heroes; his voice issuing
+through the vent in the roof, at once window and chimney, from the
+kennel in which was neither room nor light for a man to sit and record
+the verses. My own chance was luckier and happier. It came on a day when
+a party of us had set out in quest of a remote mountain lough. Our way
+led along the river, and as we drove up to where the valley contracted,
+and the tillage land decreased in extent and fertility, the type of the
+people changed. They were Celts and Catholics, evident to the least
+practised eye. A little further still from civilisation we reached the
+fringe that was Gaelic not merely in blood; the kindly woman whose
+cottage warmed and sheltered us when we returned half-foundered from
+plunging through bogs was an Irish speaker. She had no songs herself,
+but if I wanted them her neighbour, James Kelly, was the best of
+company, and would keep me listening the length of a night.
+
+I pushed my bicycle through a drizzle of misty rain up the road over
+mountainous moor, before I saw his cottage standing trim and white under
+its thatch in a screen of trees, and as I was nearing it, the boy with
+me showed me James down in a hollow, filling a barrow with turf. He
+stopped work as I came down, and called off his dog, looking at me
+curiously enough, for, indeed, strangers were a rarity in that spot,
+clean off the tourist track, and away from any thoroughfare. One's
+presence had to be explained out of hand, and I told him exactly why I
+had come. He looked surprised and perhaps a little pleased, that his
+learning should draw students. But he made no pretence of ignorance; the
+only question was, how he could help me. Did I want songs of the modern
+kind, or the older songs of Finn Mac-Cool? If it was the latter, it
+seemed I was not well able to manage the common talk, and these songs
+were written in "very hard Irish, full of ould strong words."
+
+I should like to send the literary Irishmen of my acquaintance one by
+one to converse with James Kelly as a salutary discipline. He was
+perfectly courteous, but through his courtesy there pierced a kind of
+toleration that carried home to one's mind a profound conviction of
+ignorance. People talk about the servility of the Irish peasant. Here
+was a man who professed his inability to read or write, but stood
+perfectly secure in his sense of superior education. His respect for me
+grew evidently when he found me familiar with the details of more
+stories than he expected. I was raised to the level of a hopeful pupil.
+They had been put into English, I told him. "Oh, ay, they would be, in a
+sort of a way," said James, with a fine scorn. Soon we broke new ground,
+for James had by heart not only the Fenian or Ossianic cycle, but also
+the older Sagas of Cuchulain. He confused the cycles, it is true, taking
+the Red Branch heroes for contemporaries of the Fianna, which is much as
+if one should make Heracles meet Odysseus or Achilles in battle; but he
+had these earlier legends by heart, a rare acquirement among the
+Shanachies of to-day.
+
+Here then was a type of the Irish illiterate. A man somewhere between
+fifty and sixty, at a guess; of middle height, spare and well-knit,
+high-nosed, fine-featured, keen-eyed; standing there on his own ground,
+courteous and even respectful, yet consciously a scholar; one who had
+travelled too--had worked in England and Scotland, and could tell me
+that the Highland Gaelic was far nearer to the language of the old days
+than the Irish of to-day; finally, one who could recite without apparent
+effort long narrative poems in a dead literary dialect. When I find an
+English workman who can stand up and repeat the works of Chaucer by
+heart, then and not till then I shall see an equivalent for James Kelly.
+
+And yet it would be a different thing entirely. Chaucer has never
+survived in oral tradition. But in the West of Donegal, whence James
+Kelly's father emigrated to where I found his son, every old person had
+this literature in mind, and my friend was no exception. It is among the
+younger generation, who have been taught in the National Schools (surely
+the most ironic of all titles), that the language and the history of the
+nation are dying out. Yet that is changing. For instance, James Kelly's
+son reads and writes Irish, and on another day helped me to note down
+some of his father's lore.
+
+For it was late when I came first to the house, and though the Shanachie
+pressed me (not knowing even my name) to stay the night, I had to depart
+for that day, after I had heard him recite in the traditional chant some
+staves of an Ossianic lay, and sing to the traditional air Carolan's
+famous lyric, "The Lord of Mayo." We drank a glass of whisky from my
+flask, a cup of tea that his wife made; and as we went into the house he
+asked a favour in a whisper. It was that I should eat plenty of his good
+woman's butter. He escorted me a good way over the hill, for, said he,
+when I had come that far to see him, it was the least that he should put
+me a piece on my road, and he exhorted me to come again for "a good
+crack together." And if I deferred visiting him for another year that
+was largely because I did not like to face again this illiterate without
+acquiring a little more knowledge.
+
+What came of my second visit must be written in another paper. But here,
+let it be understood this is no exceptional case. In every three or four
+parishes along the Western seaboard and for twenty miles inland, from
+Donegal to Kerry, there is the like of James Kelly to be found. It may
+be that in another fifty years not one of these Shanachies will linger;
+education will have made a clean sweep of illiteracy. And yet again, it
+may be that by that time, not only in the Western baronies but through
+the length and breadth of Ireland, both song and story and legend will
+be living again on the lips and in the hearts of the people. _Go leigidh
+Dia sin._
+
+
+
+
+LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES
+
+II
+
+THE LIFE OF A SONG
+
+
+There was a great contention some years ago fought out in a law court
+between the British Museum and the Royal Irish Academy, for the custody
+of certain treasure trove, gold vessels and ornaments disinterred on an
+Irish beach. The treasures went back, as was only right, to Ireland,
+where is a rich storehouse of such things, for the soil has been dug
+over in search for the material relics of ancient art. Yet little heed
+has been paid to treasures of far greater worth and interest, harder to
+sell, it is true, but easier to come by--the old songs and stories which
+linger in oral tradition or in old manuscripts handed down from peasant
+to peasant. Only within the last few years did the Irish suddenly awake
+to a consciousness that the authentic symbols, or, rather, the
+indisputable proofs of the national existence so dear to them, were
+slipping out of their hands. So far had the heritage perished, so ill
+had the tradition been maintained, that when they turned to revive their
+expiring language and literature, the first question asked was, "What is
+it you would revive? Was there ever a literature in Irish or merely a
+collection of ridiculous rhodomontade? Is there a language, or does
+there survive merely a debased jargon, employed by ignorant peasants
+among themselves, and chiefly useful, like a thieves' lingo, to baffle
+the police?"
+
+These were the questions put, and not one in a thousand of Irish
+Nationalists could give an answer according to knowledge.
+
+Now, matters are changed. The books that were available in print have
+been read; the work of poets extant only in manuscript has been printed
+and widely circulated; the language is studied with zeal, and not in
+Ireland only, but wherever Irishmen are gathered. Yet nothing has so
+strongly moved me to believe that we cherish the living rather than pay
+funeral honours to the dead, as certain hours spent with a peasant who
+could neither write nor read.
+
+The life of a song--poets have said it again and again in immortal
+verse--is of all lives the most enduring. Kingdoms pass, buildings
+crumble, but the work which a man has fashioned "out of a mouthful of
+air" defies the centuries; it keeps its shape and its quivering
+substance. Strongest of all such lives are perhaps those where "the
+mouthful of air" is left by the singer mere air, and no more, unfixed on
+paper or parchment; when the song goes from mouth to mouth, altering its
+contours it may be, but unchanged in essence, though coloured by its
+immediate surroundings as a flower fits itself to each soil. Such was
+the song that I had the chance to write down, from lips to which it came
+through who knows how many generations.
+
+The story which it tells is among the finest in that great repertory of
+legend which, since Ireland began to take count of her own possessions,
+has become familiar to the world. It is the theme of a play in the last
+book published by the chief of modern Irish poets, Mr. W. B. Yeats. But
+since he tells the story in a way of his own, and since it is none too
+well known even in those parts of Ireland where its hero's name is a
+proverb (_Comh laidir le Cuchulain_, Strong as Cuchulain), it may be
+well to set out the legend here.
+
+Cuchulain, the Achilles of Irish epic, was famous from the day in
+boyhood when he got his name by killing, bare-handed, the smith's fierce
+watchdog that would have torn him. The ransom for the killing was laid
+on by the boy himself, and it was that he should watch Culann's house
+for a year and a day till a pup should be grown to take the place of the
+slain dog. So he came to be called Cu Chulain, Culann's Hound, and by
+that name he was known when, as a young champion, he set out for the
+Isle of Skye, where the warrior-witch Sgathach (from whom the island is
+called) taught the crowning feats of arms to all young heroes who could
+pass through the ordeals she laid upon them.
+
+There was no trial that Cuchulain could not support, and the fame of him
+drew on a combat with another Amazonian warrior, Aoife, who, in the
+story that I heard, was Sgathach's daughter, though Lady Gregory in her
+fine book _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_ gives another version. But, at any
+rate, Cuchulain defeated Aoife, and she gave love to her
+conqueror--whose passion for the fierce queen was not strong enough to
+keep him from Ireland. When he made ready to go, the woman warrior told
+him that a child was to be born of their embraces, and she asked what
+should be done with it. "If it be a girl, keep it," said Cuchulain,
+"but if a boy, wait till his thumb can fill this ring"--and he gave her
+the circlet--"then send him to me." So he departed, leaving wrath behind
+him.
+
+The child born was a son, and Aoife reared him and taught him all feats
+of arms that could be taught to a mortal, except one only, and of that
+feat only Cuchulain was master: "the way," said James Kelly, prefacing
+his ballad with such an explanation as I am now giving, "there would be
+none could kill him but his own father." And when the boy had learnt all
+and was the perfect warrior, Aoife sent him out to Ireland under a
+pledge to refuse his name to any that should ask it, well knowing how
+the wardens of the coast would stop him on the shore. It fell out as she
+purposed. The young Connlaoch defeated champion after champion till
+Cuchulain himself went down, and was recognised by his son. But the
+pledge tied Connlaoch's tongue, and only when he lay dying, slain by the
+magic throw which Aoife had withheld from his knowledge, could he reveal
+himself to his father, the great and childless hero, whose lament for
+his lost son is written in the song that I set out to secure, on a day
+of sun and rain, last summer, when great soft clouds drove full sail
+through the moist atmosphere, their shadows sweeping over brown moor and
+green valley, while far away towards the sea, mountain peaks rose purple
+and amethystine in the distance.
+
+Twice before this I had been in the little cottage on Cark Mountain;
+first, when the chance rumour heard in a neighbouring cabin of a man
+with countless songs and stories sent me off to investigate; and for a
+second time, when I had come back with a slightly better knowledge of
+Gaelic and had taken down a few verses of the poem. These, sent to an
+Irish scholar, had sufficed to identify the ballad with one printed in
+Miss Brooke's _Reliques of Irish Poetry_, a characteristic production of
+the latter days of the eighteenth century, when Macpherson, with his
+adaptation of the Ossianic poems, and Bishop Percy, with his gathering
+of old English ballads, had set a fashion soon to culminate in Scott's
+great achievement.
+
+They proved, however, not identity only but difference; and the ballad
+as I have it in full with its nineteen quatrains, is even less like the
+longer version given by O'Halloran to Miss Brooke, than the opening
+stanzas suggested. In them the variations were mainly textual, and when
+I read out O'Halloran's version to James Kelly, his son, a keen
+listener, declared a preference for the printed text. But the old man
+was of another mind. "It's the same song," he said, "sure enough, but
+there's things changed in it, and I know rightly about them. Some one
+was giving it the way it would be easier to understand, leaving out the
+old hard words. And I did that myself once or twice the last day you
+were here, and I was vexed after, when I would be thinking about it. And
+this day you will be to take down what I say, let you understand it or
+not; just word for word, the right way it should be spoken."
+
+There you have in a glimpse the custodian of legend. The man was
+illiterate, technically, but he knew by instinct, as his ancestors had
+known before him, that he was the guardian of the life of a song; he
+recognised that it was a scripture which he had no right to mutilate or
+alter. He had to the full that respect for a work of literature which is
+the best indication of a scholar, and for him at least the line was
+unbroken from the Ireland of heroes and minstrels to the hour when he
+chanted over the poem that some bard in the remote ages had fashioned.
+
+Little wonder, too, for his own way of life was close to that of the
+Middle Ages. Below in the valley, where the Swilly River debouches into
+its sea lough, was a prosperous little town with banks and railway; but
+to reach the bleak brown moor where James Kelly's house stood, you must
+climb by one of two roads, each so rough and steep that a bicycle cannot
+be ridden down them. Here, in a little screen of scrub alders, stands
+the cottage, where three generations of the family live together. His
+own home consisted simply of two rooms with no upper story, but it was
+trim and comfortable, the dresser well filled, and the big pot over the
+turf fire gave out a prosperous steam. The son, a grown man, waited from
+his turf-cutting to help in our discussion; the wife was abroad that
+day, and one daughter was just starting for market with a web of
+homespun cloth which they had dressed in the household. The spinning
+wheel stood in the corner; but another girl was busy near the fire with
+more modern work, hemming shirts with a machine for a Derry factory, and
+the bleached linen was the only thing in the house which had not taken
+on the brown tints of peat smoke.
+
+James Kelly himself, as he sat by the fire declaiming at me, was all
+browns and greys, like the country outside his door; and his eyes were
+like brown streams running through that peaty mountain, with their
+movement and sparkle, and their dark depths. At other times easy, like
+that of all Irish peasants, his manner changed and grew rough and
+imperious when the business began. I must not interrupt with questions.
+I must write down, syllable for syllable, that the song might be got
+"the right way." It was by no means easy to carry out these directions,
+for the poem was written in an Irish not spoken to-day, as unlike as the
+Chaucerian English is to our common speech; and even to write down
+modern Irish by ear I was poorly qualified. Things were made harder,
+too, by the manner of recitation, as traditional as the words. He
+chanted, with a continuous vocalisation, and while he chanted, elbow and
+knee worked like a fiddler's or piper's marking the time. However, with
+persistence, I got the thing down, letting him first say a verse fully
+through, then writing line by line or as near as I could; then going
+back and asking questions in detail: the son coming to my rescue, when
+the old man lost patience (as he did once in every ten minutes) and
+interposing usefully in our discussions.
+
+For there were endless discussions as to the meaning of words, and
+nothing could be more curious than to see the old man's endeavour to
+give in English not merely a bare rendering, but the colour of every
+phrase. It made me realise as nothing else could have done, how fine was
+his feeling for the shade of a word, and I cannot describe his
+dissatisfaction with the poor equivalents he could find. He was happy
+enough when the debate drifted into an exposition--always addressed to
+his son--of the uses of some rare word in the Irish, the manner of
+exposition being by citation of passages from other songs, or phrases
+that might occur in talk. I have listened to many a professor doing the
+same thing in Greek and Latin, but to none who had a finer instinct for
+the business. Kelly's vexation came when he had to "put English on" a
+word for me, and the obvious equivalent was not the right one. Sometimes
+I could help; sometimes he arrived by himself at what satisfied him,
+though once at least it was droll enough. We were at the lines where
+Connlaoch, dying, says to his father: "If I could give my secret to any
+under the sun, it is to your bright body I would tell it." The trouble
+was about the phrase "bright body," for the word "cneas" means literally
+"skin," but is used (just like [Greek: chros] in Homer) to signify
+"person." What James wanted to convey to me was that the word was not
+the common one for "body," and at last he smote his thigh. "Carkidge,"
+he cried, "it's carkidge (carcase), 'It is to your clear carkidge I
+would tell it.'" A man with less instinct for literature would have said
+"body" at once, and never trouble more; but James knew at once too much
+and too little, and I give the instance to show how an Irishman
+unlettered in English may be deeply imbued with the true spirit of
+letters through a literature of his own.
+
+There were, however, several passages where I could get no clear account
+of the meaning, and in some I have since found by comparison with the
+text which O'Halloran provided for Miss Brooke that Kelly had got the
+words twisted. For instance, the first stanza opens simply:--
+
+    "There came to us a stout champion,
+    The hearty champion Connlaoch."
+
+But of the next two lines I could get no clearer rendering than that "he
+just came in full through these people for diversion and for fun to
+himself." Then the ballad continues at once--for its method is terse and
+its transitions abrupt throughout--to give us the words of the men who
+meet Connlaoch on his landing:--
+
+    "Where have you been, O tender gallant,
+    Riding like a noble's son?
+    Methinks by the way of your coming,
+    You are wandering or astray."
+
+And Connlaoch answers the taunt and the challenge implied:--
+
+    "My coming is over seas from the land
+    Of the High King of the World,
+    To prove my merry prowess
+    Athwart the high chiefs of Erin."
+
+(It seemed to me characteristic that the stock epithet of valour should
+be "merry" or "laughing.") The ballad added no reply (though in Miss
+Brooke's version at this point there is a dialogue of warnings), but
+went on to tell in the shortest possible words how Conall Cearnach ("the
+Victorious") rode out from Emain Macha and met the challenger:--
+
+    "Out started Conall, not weak of hand,
+    To get news of the noble's son.
+    Bitter and hard was the way of it;
+    Conall was tied by Connlaoch."
+
+    "'Bring word from us to Hound's head,'
+    Said the King in fierce sullen tones,
+    To Dundalk sunny and bright,
+    To the Hound, Dog's jaw."
+
+Then Cuchulain (thus described by versions of the nickname won when he
+broke the jaws of Culann's hound) made answer:--
+
+    "Hard for us is hearing of the captivity
+    Of the man whose plight is told;
+    And hard it is to try the venom of blades
+    With the warrior that bound Conall."
+
+But the messenger pleads:--
+
+    "Do not think but to go to the rescue
+    Of the destroying keen dangerous warrior,
+    Of the hand that had no fear for any,
+    To loose him, and he fettered."
+
+Then (as Miss Brooke in the majestic manner of the eighteenth century
+puts it):--
+
+    "Then with firm step and dauntless air,
+    Cucullin went and thus the foe addrest,
+    Let me, O valiant knight (he cried),
+            Thy courtesy request,
+    To me thy purpose and thy name confide."
+
+And so on through a sonorous description of dialogue and fight till:--
+
+    "At length Cucullin's kindling soul arose,
+    Indignant shame recruited fury lends;
+    With fatal aim his glittering lance he throws,
+    And low on earth the dying youth extends."
+
+Or, as I translate almost literally from James Kelly's version, which is
+considerably briefer than the text which Miss Brooke has so volubly
+expanded:--
+
+    "Out set the Hound of the keen, smooth blade
+    To see the work that Conall made,
+    Till he pierced with a bitter blow,
+    That hero youth his hardy foe."
+
+That is all we are told of the fighting; the ballad passes straight to a
+terse dramatic dialogue, which Cuchulain opens:--
+
+    "Champion, tell your story,
+    For I see your wounds are heavy;
+    'Twill be short ere they raise your cairn,
+    So hide your testament no longer."
+
+"That's what he said to the son," said James Kelly, finishing the verse,
+and beginning afresh,
+
+    "Let me fall on my face,
+    For methinks 'tis you are my father,
+    And for fear lest men of Eire should see
+    Me retreating from your fierce grapple."
+
+"Then," said James, "the son spoke for to tell him the reason he
+couldn't spake at the first":--
+
+    "I took pledges to my mother
+    Not to give my story to any single man,
+    If I would give it to any under the sun,
+    It is to your bright body I would tell it."
+
+("Complimenting him, like," said James.) Then he recited the stanza
+which tells by implication how in the long duel Cuchulain was at last
+driven to use the irresistible stroke of Sgathach's teaching:--
+
+    "I lay my curse on my mother,
+    That she put me under pledge;
+    But if it were not for the feat of magic
+    I had not been got for nothing."
+
+(It is a fine phrase surely, "You had paid dear in blood before you
+mastered me.")
+
+Cuchulain answers groaning, with a wail for the lineage that is cut off:
+
+    "I lay my curse on your mother,
+    For she destroyed a multitude of young ones;
+    And because the treachery that was in her
+    Left your smooth flesh reddened."
+
+Then comes, with the boy's dying word, the revelation of the most tragic
+moment in the fight.
+
+    "Cuchulain, beloved father,
+    Is it not a wonder you did not know me
+    When I cast my spear crooked and feebly
+    Against your bush of blades."
+
+Where will you find a finer stroke of invention? The boy, tongue-tied by
+his pledge, knows his father and feels his defence failing against the
+terrible onset; he would not, if he could, be the victor, but he thinks
+of a way within the honour of his bond which may awaken knowledge of
+him; and he casts his javelin with a clumsiness not to be looked for in
+the champion "that tied Conall." It is useless, the battle madness is in
+Cuchulain, he thinks only of conquest, an end to the supple, quick
+parrying, and he throws the gaebulg, a spear of dragon's bones bristling
+with points (his "bush of blades"), with the magic cast that there is no
+meeting. And now there is nothing left to him but the lamentation,
+
+    "Och, och! Great is my madness!
+    I lifting here my young lad!
+    My son's head in my one hand,
+    His arms and his raiment on the other.
+
+    "I, the father that slew his son,
+    May I never throw spear nor noble javelin;
+    The hand that slew its son,
+    May it win torture and sharp wounding.
+
+    "The grief for my son I put from me never,
+    Till the flagstones of my side crumble,
+    It is in me, and through my heart,
+    Like a sharp blaze in the hoar hill grasses.
+
+    "If I and my heart's Connlaoch
+    Were playing our kingly feats together,
+    We could range from wave to shore
+    Over the five provinces of Erin."
+
+The penultimate stanza, with its magnificent closing image and its truly
+AEschylean hyperbole, is not even suggested in Miss Brooke's version. It
+is, perhaps, the finest thing in the poem; but I hardly know any ballad
+finer as a piece of dramatic narrative; and the resonant verse, strongly
+rhymed (in the Gaelic assonances), and copiously stressed with
+alliteration, bears out the theme.
+
+These, I trust, are critical opinions. But if the collector would have a
+special weakness for a vase which his own spade had unearthed, I may be
+prejudiced in favour of the poem, which I got in the sweat of my brow
+from very probably the one man living who knew it in that form.
+
+Tellers of old Irish fairy tales about enchanted princes, magic cocks
+and hens, and the like, are still numerous; but it is very rare to find
+a man who keeps living the old poetry which was made, perhaps, in the
+twelfth century. Yet while any survive the tradition is still there; the
+song still lives, for I did not spend my hours without feeling that this
+old man could respond to any emotion that the song-maker put into the
+sound and the meaning and the associations of his words. There are still
+those to whom the Irish even of the twelfth century is no dead language.
+Even if it were, no doubt the songs made in it might still be strong in
+life, as are to-day those of Homer and a hundred others. But in the case
+of these smaller literatures, once the tongue itself has ceased to be
+heard, dumbness and paralysis fall upon what might else be so full of
+vitality. And a song has more than its own life, it has power to
+quicken, to breed. If any one considers that legend of the son and
+father (found in many languages, yet in none, I think, more finely
+shaped), it is easy to see how from age to age it may revive itself in
+new forms, entering into other shapes, as Helen's figure adorns not her
+own story only, but the praise of a thousand women. Let it be understood
+that this legend is only one of a cycle, and that the song which I wrote
+down was only the barest fraction of James Kelly's repertory. Indeed, he
+was vexed that I should take it as a specimen, for he himself "had more
+conceit in" the lays that tell of Finn and his companions, and I could
+have filled a volume, and maybe several volumes, from his recitations.
+
+These songs may die, the language may die, the Irish race may be
+swallowed up in England and America. But it is my belief that the strong
+intellectual life which made of Ireland a home of the arts before the
+Normans came across channel may, like many another life in nature,
+spring after centuries of torpor into vigour and fertility again. That
+is the belief and hope of many of us; but nothing has rendered me so
+confident in it as to find this work of a strong and fine art not laid
+aside and neglected, but honoured and current to-day, and, though in a
+poor man's cottage, living with as full a life as when it was chanted at
+the feasts of princes.
+
+
+
+
+IRISH EDUCATION AND IRISH CHARACTER.
+
+
+Education in Ireland has been organised by the State in accordance with
+English ideas. Had English influence been able to bring about any large
+measure of conformity between the two countries, there would have been
+little or no need for a separate paper on moral training in Irish
+schools. But what conformity there is, is purely superficial; and
+although free development has been hindered, and Irish institutions for
+teaching are less characteristic than they would have been if entirely
+left to themselves, still the moral influences which emerge wherever
+pupils and teachers are brought together reveal themselves in Ireland,
+and reveal themselves as Irish. The object of this paper, then, is to
+illustrate, so far as possible, the nature and the symptoms of these
+distinctive influences.
+
+First of all, it may be said broadly that no ordinary person in Ireland
+contemplates the possibility of teaching morality apart from religion;
+and by religion is meant emphatically this or that particular creed.
+Almost every school maintained by the State is managed locally by a
+clergyman, who appoints the teacher, and public feeling is so strong on
+the matter that in any neighbourhood even a small group of families of
+any particular denomination is always provided with a separate school of
+its own. Of late, indeed, opinion has begun to agitate for associating
+the laity with the clergy in the management of schools; but this does
+not indicate any desire to lessen the importance given to the part
+played by religion in education.
+
+Further, so far as Catholic Ireland is concerned, an immense proportion
+of the teaching both in primary and secondary schools is done by members
+of religious orders, and in these, of course, there is no conception of
+separating moral influences from religious. There is, however, no
+evidence known to me that even in the few Protestant schools which are
+partly or wholly under lay control any duties, other than those of
+ordinary school work, are inculcated except as part of a Christian's
+religious obligations. This entire state of things is due to the fact
+that positive Christian belief, and the practice of religious
+observances, are everywhere in Ireland very general, and among the
+Catholic population almost universal. It is also hardly necessary to
+point out that in many respects the standard of Irish morality is so
+high that the example of Ireland may be quoted with confidence in
+support of the view which makes moral teaching necessarily a part of
+religion.
+
+But from such broad generalities there is not much to be gathered, and I
+proceed to examine in some detail the existing institutions--beginning
+at the top with higher education.
+
+It follows from what has been said that, in the general opinion of
+Irishmen, there can be no positive moral influence where there is no
+religious teaching; and for that reason a university without a school of
+theology or arrangements for corporate worship is, to Irishmen, a
+university deficient in moral safeguards. This accounts for the fact
+that Catholic opinion was much less opposed to the Protestant
+University of Dublin than to the more modern Queen's Colleges, which,
+designed by England to provide for her wants of Ireland, excluded
+religion entirely from their purview. This provision satisfied no one,
+except to some extent the Presbyterians, who accepted Queen's College,
+Belfast, with some alacrity, though in practice demanding that its head
+should always be a staunch professor of their own persuasion. But
+Catholics as a body refused to accept either the University of Dublin
+with its Protestant atmosphere or the "godless" Queen's Colleges; and
+since Ireland is mainly a Catholic country, and the National University
+has not yet created a tradition, it is clear that not much can be
+gleaned on the subject of Irish ideas of moral training from Irish
+universities.
+
+Yet Trinity College is well worth study, for in it we have a free
+growth, typifying both in its virtues and in its defects the ruling
+Protestant class, landed and professional. Here, unquestionably, the
+chief moral influence is that of the Church, felt, as at Oxford,
+directly through the chapel services and sermons, and indirectly through
+the presence of a large body of theological students. The second of
+these influences is specially strong in Dublin, because these students
+have an organisation of their own in the University Theological Society,
+and also because the work of the Divinity School at Dublin comprises
+much that is done in England by the training colleges. I should
+therefore be inclined to put the positive influence of dogmatic religion
+higher at Dublin than at Oxford.
+
+On the other hand, the vaguer humanitarian enthusiasms which are more or
+less allied to Socialism, and with which the High Church party
+willingly allies itself, have, I think, much less hold in Trinity than
+at the English universities; though the movement which sends so many
+brilliant young Englishmen into work (temporary or permanent) in the
+East End of London has its parallel in the recently organised Social
+Service Society, which attempts something for the reclamation of Dublin
+slums. Again, in regard to more definitely political aspirations, Irish
+Protestants are somewhat unfortunately situated. Trinity as a whole has
+no sympathy with the ideals that appeal to Ireland as a nation, and it
+always seems to lack first-hand touch with the best English thought,
+whether Liberal or Tory. This isolation from the main movement of Irish
+thought and feeling on the one hand, and on the other, this enforced
+separation from the current of English life, keep the place a little
+old-fashioned; and to generate enthusiasm, ideals and feelings need a
+certain freshness. If it be held (as I should hold) that a university's
+main moral function is to produce enthusiasts rather than merely decent
+citizens, in this respect, I think, Trinity fails.
+
+In regard to the less direct influences, a good deal may be noted. The
+general trend of life in Trinity is towards frugality, just as at Oxford
+it is towards extravagance. Consequently, money is less of an advantage,
+poverty less of a drawback than at the English universities; the
+standard of living is more uniform; and in the society of which the
+university is typical, and which it influences, respect for wealth as
+wealth is noticeably rare. Again, the idea of education is more
+disciplinary than in England. Irishmen go to college, not to acquire
+culture by contact, but to learn certain definite things; and the
+university, in its anxiety to find out if the task is being learnt,
+multiplies examinations. The same idea pervades all Irish education--the
+old-fashioned demand for a positive result in knowledge; and if it leads
+to an excessive value set upon these tests, it also goes far to
+discourage idleness.
+
+In another matter Trinity College is typical of Irish ideas generally.
+Games are simply taken as games, not as a main business of life in which
+success may even have a marketable value. Everybody recognizes their
+physical use, and more than that, their use as a means of bringing men
+together. But nobody in Ireland, save here and there a stray apostle of
+English notions, talks of the moral lessons to be acquired by fielding
+out or by patient batting. Compulsory games at school are practically
+unknown; nobody plays unless he wants to; so that the duffer does not
+experience the questionable moral advantage of physical discomfort and
+frequent humiliation, and the naturally painstaking or excellent athlete
+gets no more than his fair chance of exercising his gifts. And these are
+less likely to have an undue importance in their possessor's eyes,
+because they will not of themselves lead him to a position of great
+distinction in an Irish university.
+
+Unfortunately, Trinity College is the only place in Ireland--unless
+perhaps a saving clause should be made for Queen's College,
+Belfast--which offers what is meant by a university life. The National
+University, whether in Dublin, Cork or Galway, brings young men together
+only in classes and in one or two debating societies. Yet even so, I
+question whether, in some ways, life does not beat stronger in it than
+in Trinity; whether the moral influences proper to a university, the
+enthusiasm, the contagion of generous ideas, are not here more strongly
+felt. The reason for this view must be given.
+
+Trinity has never been the University of Ireland. It is ceasing to be
+the University of Protestant Ireland, for Protestants, who can afford to
+do so, send their sons increasingly to Oxford or Cambridge, and Trinity,
+which has not known how to create a true and special function for
+itself, is becoming merely a cheap substitute for these English
+institutions. And the reason for this is a moral reason which goes to
+the root of many questions connected with Irish education. Should Irish
+schools and colleges seek to educate citizens for the Empire, or
+citizens for Ireland? During the last half century, while the
+Imperialist idea has been developing in England, Trinity has thrown all
+its moral weight into support of that idea. But the Imperialist idea in
+England is very different from the same idea as viewed in Canada or New
+Zealand or Australia; and universities in these countries address
+themselves particularly to local needs. In the section of Ireland which
+Trinity represents, local patriotism is held to conflict with Imperial
+patriotism, and one has to observe that Trinity's Imperialism is
+forwarding tendencies which are leaving her drained. Nationalists may
+respect the sincerity of convictions so pressed in defiance of a local
+interest; but a university, whose main emotional appeal is directed
+towards evoking primarily an enthusiasm for England, cannot be of much
+use to Nationalist Ireland. Catholics may (and do) respect the
+thoroughness of the religious teaching, and the strong grip which
+Protestantism keeps on the university; but a university which
+inculcates morals through a Protestant religion is not precisely
+suitable to Catholics. Yet Catholics and Nationalists alike infinitely
+prefer a university or a college or a school with strong Protestant
+beliefs, or strong Imperialist patriotism, to an institution with
+neither beliefs nor patriotism at all. The colourless and merely
+scholastic ideals of the Queen's Colleges, and the huge examining
+machinery known as the Royal University, typified in their total lack of
+moral influences all that was worst in the educational system under
+which Ireland labours.
+
+I pass to a brief examination of the boarding schools, institutions
+which have never flourished in Ireland. Nearly all Protestants and many
+Catholics, if they can afford it, send their sons to England to be
+taught. The ideals of the English Public School have reacted so strongly
+upon Irish Protestant schools that nothing need be said of these--not
+one of which has ever, within living memory, had a continuous
+prosperity. The important Catholic schools are managed by the great
+teaching orders, especially by the Jesuits, and managed at astonishingly
+low cost. They give everywhere more than value for the fees which they
+receive. No unendowed institution could compete with them; and it
+practically comes to this, that the regular clergy subsidise education
+with their own unpaid labour and even with their own funds, in order to
+maintain their influence over the faith and morals of their country.
+Whether it might be more to the advantage of Irish parents to pay more
+and get something different, is another question; but those of us who
+least like the exclusive delegation of these important functions to the
+priesthood, cannot but admire the thoroughness and consistency with
+which the Catholic priesthood's idea is carried out. It would be hard to
+overstate the moral effect of that vast organised system of
+self-sacrifice and self-suppression.
+
+Three or four points may be noted in relation to these schools. One is,
+that in all classrooms and playgrounds, a master is always present.
+Comparing this with the system in vogue at many English schools, under
+which a boy out of school hours is always forced to live in public by
+rules which compel him either to be playing some game or looking on
+while others play, I prefer the system of frank supervision, as leaving
+more individual freedom and choice of pursuits, and as making serious
+bullying impossible. Generally, the idea that it is good for a boy to be
+knocked about without stint is foreign to Irish ideas. A pleasant and
+characteristic feature of Jesuit schools is the habit of telling off
+some boy to act as companion and cicerone to a newcomer for his first
+week or fortnight; and the ridiculous English fashion which prescribes
+that the smallest fag should be described as a "man" is unknown.
+Christian names, not surnames, are used generally. The unpopularity of
+boarding schools in Ireland is due to the great value set upon home
+life; and an Irish boarding school is far less distinct from home life
+than an English one.
+
+English eyes would be surprised and a good deal shocked by the presence
+of a billiard table in every playroom; yet it may fairly be argued that
+it is wise to limit the number of things that have the fascination of
+the forbidden. A more serious criticism would address itself to the
+permitted slovenliness. Untidiness amounts to a national vice in
+Ireland, and, though one may overstate its gravity, the secondary
+schools could and should do much more to remedy this national defect
+than they are at present doing. At one first-class Irish
+establishment--admirably equipped with buildings, playground, and all
+other appliances--boots used to go unblacked from one end of the month
+to the other. The boys who come here come largely from the well-to-do
+farming class, in whose homes, in many ways so pleasant and worthy of
+respect, there is often a lamentable lack of that charm which comes of
+notable housewifery. The young men who return from this school will be
+less apt than they should be to value good housewifery in their wives
+and mothers.
+
+But of all sinners in this regard the State is the chief offender. Under
+the Code of the National Board of Education a national schoolmaster or
+mistress is bound to teach cleanliness and decency by precept and
+example. He or she is paid an average wage (without allowances) of
+thirty shillings or one pound a week according to sex; and out of that
+an appearance befitting superior station has to be maintained--for in
+Ireland the schoolmaster has always a position of some dignity. For the
+school the State provides four bare walls, a roof, not always
+weatherproof, and a few desks. Firing is not provided. Decoration is
+subject to inspection, and any picture which can be held to have a
+religious or remotely political bearing is a gross offence against the
+Code. It follows, in practice, that bare walls are kept bare, though not
+clean; and let it be remembered that Catholicism, if left to itself, in
+education always trusts greatly to the appeal to the eye. In every
+Catholic school uncontrolled by the State the emblems of religion are
+everywhere present. National schools under State control, even in places
+where there is not a Protestant child within twenty miles, are
+rigorously forbidden the use of any such embellishment. On the other
+hand, Protestant schools which would gladly, and, as I think, most
+laudably, furnish themselves with pictures recalling such memories as
+the shutting of the Derry gates, come under the same tyranny of
+compromise. Taste and culture are the expression of an individuality,
+and individuality is forbidden to Irish teachers in State employ. The
+State puts a schoolmaster into a schoolhouse, without adequate payment
+for himself, without adequate provision either for building or the
+upkeep of building; it bids him to keep it clean, but pays no servant to
+wash or sweep; and, while enjoining the absence of dirt, it checks and
+hampers that desire to decorate, which is the positive side of order and
+taste. The result is, broadly, slatternly schools.
+
+There could hardly be a better moral influence in Ireland than
+tastefully and brightly decorated schools, cleanly kept. But to secure
+this the State must provide money, and must give individual freedom.
+Instead of that, it adapts its institution to the lowest standard of
+living; and the raggedest child out of the dirtiest cottage will
+probably be in full keeping with his environment when he takes his place
+in class.
+
+The same tyranny of compromise sterilises the whole teaching on the
+moral side. Nothing must be taught anywhere which could offend any
+susceptibility--except in the hour licensed for the teaching of
+denominational religion. There must be no appeal to Irish patriotism,
+whether it be of Protestant or Catholic. Irish history may not be taught
+as a subject, and, until lately, anything bearing on it, however
+remotely, was tabooed. The poem _Breathes there a man with soul so dead_
+was struck out of a lesson book, lest it should encourage sedition.
+To-day certain accepted books on Irish history may be used as readers;
+the Irish language may be taught, and is taught; and gradually with
+these changes new moral influences are coming in. Irish children are
+being encouraged to remember their nationality. Yet, meanwhile, the
+teacher, who is to instruct them in the duties of a good citizen, is
+debarred from taking any part in local politics, from serving on any
+local council. He is forbidden, in fact, to be himself a good citizen;
+forbidden to be anything more than the colourless instrument of a system
+of compromise and countercheck. Nothing is more certain than this, that
+to get a good teacher you need a man's whole personality; you must
+enlist all his beliefs and his feelings in the exercise of that moral
+function of education which can never be fulfilled by a mere machine for
+imparting the rudiments. Man everywhere, but especially in Ireland, is,
+as Aristotle said, a political animal. The State in Ireland, when
+organising education, tries as far as possible to eliminate the man and
+produce the pedagogue.
+
+Take, for contrast with all this, the purely native institution, now
+unhappily extinct, of the old "classical academies" kept in the country
+parts of Munster by private laymen. In the eighteenth century, and on
+into the nineteenth, these men kept alive the tradition of Irish popular
+poetry, sometimes with a real gift. For good or for bad they were
+persons of character and of talent, and the last of them is alive,
+though he keeps school no longer. He taught boys who had learnt the
+rudiments at the ordinary national school, and who wished to carry on
+their studies with a view either to the priesthood or to medicine. He
+was paid only by the fees of his scholars, who were either the sons of
+farmers about him, or of men living at a distance, who sent their
+children to be part of the family in some farm where they had kinship or
+acquaintance. Thus existence for these scholars was divided between the
+home life of a farm and the hours of school. There was, however, a small
+element of what in Ireland were called "poor scholars"--boys from the
+less prosperous North and West, who came (sometimes walking the whole
+journey) to get learning gratis. To them teaching was never refused, and
+their board was provided by the farmers, who "would be snatching them
+from one and other," since they assisted the other children in preparing
+tasks.
+
+Now, in the school which my friend has described to me, there was no
+formal teaching of anything but the prescribed subjects. But literature
+would be lying about--Haverty's _History of Ireland_, and the
+Nationalist papers of the day--and the teacher was there always ready to
+expound and answer questions. Himself a fighting politician (a member of
+the Fenian organisation, whose name is still sacred throughout Ireland),
+he was careful never to draw in or compromise his pupils; but to teach
+them the story of their country and discuss it with them was part of his
+natural occupation. He taught Irish also, the tongue readiest to him,
+for he held that Irishmen should know their own language; but the
+essential business of his school was teaching the simple old-fashioned
+curriculum, Latin, mathematics, and some Greek. Yet because he was a man
+who loved and valued knowledge for its own sake, and loved and valued
+literature, it is probable that he gave a more real training to the mind
+than is achieved by the most modern system of hand and eye culture and
+the rest of it. He taught neither religion nor morals, but his teaching
+assumed throughout, what his example showed, that a man should be true
+and thorough in what he professed to believe, and should be ready at all
+times to make sacrifices for principle. Such a school had the only moral
+influence which in Ireland has ever counted for much--the influence of a
+strong personality, acting in alliance with the influences of a fully
+realised religion and of an ordered family life.
+
+I sketch a more concrete picture that always rises in my mind with a ray
+of hope, when I think of education in Ireland. Out of doors, winter
+twilight falling on a wild landscape within hearing of the Atlantic
+surf; the man of the house coming out to talk to me, a handsome Irishman
+of the old school, frieze-clad, with the traditional side whiskers, the
+humorous eye and mouth. We talked for a while in the cold, then "_Gabh i
+leith isteach_," he said, "for I hear you have the Irish." As I paused
+in the door to phrase the Gaelic salutation, more devout and courteous
+than would come to my lips in any other tongue, I was astonished at the
+company gathered in the long low room. Chairs were set by the wide
+hearth of course, and from one of them the woman of the house rose to
+greet me; a settle ran along the side wall, and its length was filled
+with men and women blotted against the dusk background. But the centre
+of the picture was a narrow deal table set in the middle of the room,
+with candles on it, and benches on each side, and on the benches fully
+ten children busy with books and copies. "Are these your burden?" I
+asked in the quaint Irish phrase. "A share of them," the man answered;
+and then I understood that some belonged to other neighbours, and that
+it was a mutual arrangement for friendliness and help. None of the
+children budged; there they were, drilled and disciplined at their work,
+in the middle of the room, while their elders sat and chatted quietly. I
+have never seen elsewhere anything which so filled my conception of what
+a home should be, as that farmhouse in Corcabascinn--so full of order
+and good governance, yet so free of constraint, so full of welcome, yet
+so lacking in expense or display. For, understand, we who were strangers
+were brought (much against my will) into the state-room or parlour
+beyond the party wall, and drink was pressed upon us hospitably. But the
+neighbours who had come there (and came daily, I fancy) came neither to
+eat nor drink (unless maybe tea might be brewing) but simply to sit and
+smoke and talk, and watch that their children got their lessons
+properly. And at the end, perhaps before they parted, perhaps when the
+family was alone, the rosary would be said by the turf fire, that made,
+winter or summer, the centre of all that pleasant existence.
+
+It is a pity to think of how poorly the National school, to which those
+children would go with their tasks in the morning, seconds the help
+which this home life gives it. Easily could the school--which takes
+whatever real light it has from the home, just as it depends for warmth
+on the few turf which scholars bring daily along with their
+books--reflect sound and fruitful ideas on to the home through the
+children. It could teach the children and the parents, not only the
+political, but the economic history of their own country; it could teach
+them what has been done in Ireland, what has succeeded, what has failed,
+and why; it could teach them, who are already proud of being Irish, to
+have new reasons for their pride; it could teach them, who are already
+willing to do their best for Ireland, into what channels the driving
+force of that willingness may be poured.
+
+Outside of definite religion, the only fruitful source of educational
+ideas connected with the moral order that I see in Ireland is the Gaelic
+League. This organisation, founded to save from extinction, and to
+revive into new prosperity the national language of Ireland, based
+itself entirely upon a moral appeal. It appealed to Irishmen as they
+were proud of their race, to save the most distinctive symbol of their
+nationality; and the appeal met with an extraordinary promptness of
+response. But to stimulate and promote the movement, it was found
+necessary to widen the propaganda. Irishmen were urged to learn Irish,
+and to speak Irish because of pride in their country; the same
+organisation soon began to teach that an Irishman who set an example of
+drunkenness, or gave an occasion of it, not only sinned against himself,
+but against his country. Vulgar and indecent literature was denounced as
+un-Irish; Irish dances were advocated, not only for their admirable
+grace and their historic interest, but also because it was held that
+dances like the waltz, departed from the austere standard of Irish
+morality. Irish men and women were taught to buy goods of Irish
+manufacture by the people who taught them to learn the language, on the
+ground that if the Irish nation continued to ebb away out of Ireland,
+nationality and language must perish together.
+
+Thus through the medium of a propaganda which at first sight would seem
+merely literary and archaeological, many practical issues of life were
+related to a purely educational purpose. There is no doubt that the
+Gaelic League, now a widespread and solidly established organisation,
+spending on the whole, perhaps, L30,000 or L40,000 a year on its
+enterprise, has done as much to promote temperance, and to further Irish
+industries, as it has accomplished in its peculiar task of reviving the
+old tongue. Primarily a teaching institution--for each of the League's
+eight hundred branches exists to hold classes for Irish study--it has
+linked with the linguistic teaching a moral idea. The reaction has been
+mutual, for there is more intelligent thought on the methods of
+linguistic teaching in the Gaelic League than one would easily find in
+all the schools and universities of Ireland. The appeal to pride of race
+has quickened intelligence no less than enthusiasm.
+
+It is a very remarkable fact, that the great teaching order of the
+Christian Brothers has taken up the teaching of Irish and generally the
+Gaelic League's whole propaganda more thoroughly than any other
+organisation in Ireland; very remarkable, for their practical success is
+so conspicuous that Protestant clergymen have repeatedly from the pulpit
+appealed for extra support to Protestant schools whose pupils, as one
+preacher said in my hearing, were being ousted in all competition for
+employment by the lads from the Christian Brothers' schools. Whatever
+the post was, the preacher said, this body of lay Catholics seemed
+always to have a candidate specially prepared for it. One of the
+greatest institutions in charge of that order is the industrial school
+at Artane, near Dublin, where eight hundred boys are being prepared for
+different trades. Every single one of those boys is now being taught
+Irish; that is to say, a linguistic training with a special appeal to
+the learner's patriotism has been superimposed on the ordinary
+rudiments. It is a great experiment made by enthusiasts who are also
+teachers with an intensely practical bent.
+
+It is too early even to forecast the effect which is likely to be
+produced upon Irish education generally by the new university colleges
+set up under Mr. Birrell's Act. Yet this may be said. Irish education
+needs reform from the top downwards, not from the bottom upwards. It has
+lacked idealism, and these universities in which Ireland, whether of the
+north or the south, will be free to express its own character, can and
+should set up ideals which will govern every school in the country.
+Trinity College has been free to follow its own bent, and its eyes
+to-day are, in scriptural phrase, "on the ends of the earth." Primary
+education, secondary studies, as governed by the machinery controlled
+through the Board of Intermediate Education, and university teaching as
+directed and rewarded through the Royal University, have all in the last
+resort been inspired by Englishmen who thought it very desirable that
+Irish boys and girls should learn to read and write and cipher, and that
+young men and young women should equip themselves for clerkships in the
+civil service, but who never for one instant realised that the end of
+education is divergence not conformity--to elicit, whether from the race
+or from the individual, a full and characteristic development. In twenty
+years perhaps a paper of interest may be written to show the positive
+results of education upon Irish character. At present the most
+noticeable facts are negative, and may be summed up by affirming a total
+lack of correspondence between the system employed and the needs and
+qualities of the Irish people.
+
+1907.
+
+
+
+
+THE IRISH GENTRY.
+
+
+At the height on the struggle over the Home Rule Bill, there was
+published a book interesting as the biography of a remarkable
+individual, but no less interesting as depicting the crucial moment in
+the history of an aristocracy. Colonel Moore wisely entitles the life of
+his father simply _An Irish Gentleman_. Versatile, eloquent,
+quick-tempered and lovable, excessive in generosity, excessive in
+courage and self-confidence, with the racecourse for his ruling passion
+and horsemanship for his supreme achievement, George Henry Moore was the
+paragon of his class. He displayed in the highest degree those qualities
+on which the Irish gentry prided themselves and which they most admired:
+he shared the prestige and power of Irish landlords when prestige and
+power were at their height; and he confronted the decisive hour when he,
+and men like him, had to choose between the interest of their country
+and the interest of their class. There he separated himself from his
+fellows; he parted from all to whom he was bound by ties of immediate
+advantage, of pleasure, of association, of affection, and he threw in
+his lot with Ireland. He saw first the moral bankruptcy of his own
+class, then their widespread financial ruin; and though he helped to
+break their political power, and in so doing earned the general love of
+his countrymen, yet the troubles which beset the landlord class did not
+spare him, and he died, broken-hearted, forty-three years ago, at the
+beginning of a struggle which is not ended yet. It is well worth while
+to consider the circumstances of that stormy career.
+
+First a brilliant schoolboy, then an idle law student, George Henry
+Moore was driven to travel by the complications of a passionate love
+affair, and he travelled adventurously, being a pioneer of exploration
+in the Caucasus and Syria. Sketches reproduced in the book show that he
+could draw no less well than he wrote. Returning to Ireland at the age
+of twenty-seven, he devoted himself entirely to hunting and racing, and
+few men were better known on the turf, nor were there even in the West
+of Ireland more desperate riders than his brother and himself. George
+Henry was carried off the field at Cahir in 1843 to all appearance dead;
+he was alive enough to hear discussion as to his burial. Augustus, less
+lucky, died of a fall he took riding Mickey Free in the Grand National
+two years later. The brothers were closely bound to each other in
+affection, and this was a heavy blow to the survivor; but George Moore
+continued to race, and in 1846 made the coup of his life, winning
+L10,000 on "Coranna" for the Chester Cup. He sent L1,000 of it home for
+distribution among his tenants, and there was soon sore need of the
+money, for that year saw the second and disastrous failure of the potato
+crop. The Irish Famine made the turning-point in Moore's history, as in
+that of his class. The catastrophe which brought him into public life
+and into the service of his country demonstrated, cruelly enough--though
+this was the least of its cruelties--the futility of the Irish gentry as
+a whole.
+
+By the shock of his brother's death in 1845 Moore's mind had been turned
+to serious thoughts. Matter was not lacking. The report of the Devon
+Commission upon Irish land, joined to the first failure of the potato
+crop--with its accompaniment of distress and widespread agrarian
+crime--gave any Irish landlord food for reflection, and in March, 1846,
+when a vacancy occurred in the representation of Mayo, Moore came
+forward as a Whig candidate. The whole landlord interest was at his
+back, but a Repealer opposed him, and O'Connell's influence carried the
+day. There were fierce encounters, the landlords marching their tenants
+to the poll under guards of soldiers, the popular side falling upon
+these escorts and sometimes carrying off the voters--or enabling them to
+escape. One of Moore's friends, Mr. Browne, afterwards Lord Oranmore,
+wrote: "I now see we owe our lives to the priests, as they can excite
+the whole people against us whenever they like. Whatever may be the
+cause, Ireland needs reconquering."
+
+That was a typical expression of the gentry's view. Plainly Ireland was
+in rebellion when landlords could no longer carry their tenants to the
+polls to vote as the landlord directed. Moore however differed from the
+generality of Irish landlords in one important respect. He was not
+divided by religion from the people over whom he ruled, and he can never
+have had Mr. Browne's feeling of aloofness from Ireland as a country
+which might need reconquering to re-establish the ascendancy of the
+"English garrison"; nor was it natural to him to distrust the priests as
+leaders of a separate and subject race.
+
+In the autumn of 1846, when the threat of famine had become a
+certainty, Moore came home to Mayo, where there was grim business to be
+done. His tenants, on an estate running up into the wild Partry
+mountains, numbered five thousand souls. For their benefit he utilised
+far more of his winnings on "Coranna" than the tithe which he had
+originally ear-marked; and not one of all these his dependants died of
+want in that outlandish region, though in places far less remote death
+was ravenous. He was chairman of the Relief Board for the whole county,
+and slaved at his task--not harder than other landlords in other parts
+of Ireland. But his methods were more drastic, his view of the situation
+clearer. Folk must have rubbed their eyes and perhaps stopped to think
+twice when the owner of "Wolfdog," of "Anonymous," and a score of other
+famous horses, wrote, in answer to a request for his annual subscription
+to the local races, that he thought the county of Mayo "as little fit to
+be the scene of such festivities as he to contribute to their
+celebration."
+
+But Moore did not content himself with mere administration of relief. He
+saw that the English Government was apathetic and incompetent to face so
+terrible an affliction, and he took in hand to create within his own
+class an organised force of Irish opinion to bind together the ruling
+Irishmen for the good of Ireland. In company with his friend and
+kinsman, Lord Sligo, he "travelled through twenty-seven counties and
+personally conferred with most of the leading men in Ireland on the
+urgent necessity of a united effort to save the sinking people." The
+result was that between sixty and seventy members of Parliament and some
+forty peers pledged themselves to endeavour to secure united action
+upon measures regarding Ireland in the new session. On the 14th of
+January, 1847, the Irish landlord class held such a muster as had not
+been seen since the Union. "Nearly twenty peers, more than thirty
+members of Parliament, and at least six hundred gentlemen of name and
+station took part in it. The meeting called on Government to prohibit
+export of food stuffs and to sacrifice any sum that might be required to
+save the lives of the people." It passed thirty resolutions without
+dissension; and then some one asked what was to be done if the
+Government refused to adopt any of their suggestions. Would Irish
+members then unite to vote against the Government? To this, Irish
+members refused to pledge themselves, and Moore, as he said afterwards,
+"saw at a glance that the confederacy had broken down."
+
+That was the end of the revolt of the Irish gentry. It was really the
+decisive moment of their failure; disorganised and futile, they went
+down by scores in the ruin of the Encumbered Estates Court, while their
+tenants were marking with their bones a road across the Atlantic. As for
+the landlords who were popular leaders, within a few months after that
+great assembly, Daniel O'Connell, who had proposed the first resolution,
+died in Rome, heart-broken. A few months more and Smith O'Brien, the
+mover of another resolution, headed a rebellion in sheer despair.
+
+Smith O'Brien had twenty years of parliamentary life behind him when he
+was driven to the wild protest of insurrection. Twenty years of the same
+experience were to bring Moore to a very similar attitude; but in 1847
+Moore was hopeful of building up in Parliament the nucleus of an
+Independent Irish Party. When the dissolution came, in 1847, he stood
+for a second time, but as an Independent, and his work in the famine
+times carried at least its recognition. Every single elector who went to
+the poll gave one of his two votes to the Independent. He went to
+Westminster and denounced with equal energy the agrarian murders, which
+were then rife in Ireland, and those organs of publicity in England
+which sought to magnify these outrages into an indictment against the
+Irish nation. The ferment of indignation against English methods had not
+yet died out in the hearts of Irish landlords. Lord Sligo, writing to
+Moore concerning the controversy which followed, used these words: "I
+believe that _The Times_ did much to cause the feeling which resulted in
+landlord and parson shooting; it will end by turning us all into
+Repealers." If only it had! But Moore got no help from the landlord
+class, and the well-to-do Catholic professional men with whom he was
+principally allied proved themselves unable to resist the temptations of
+office and of personal interest. In the days of Sadleir and Keogh he
+fought a desperate fight against Whig place-seekers; his reward was to
+be finally unseated (in 1857) on an election petition, the charge being
+that spiritual intimidation had been exercised on his behalf by the
+priests. As Colonel Moore observes, if a landlord threatened his tenants
+with disfavour, which meant eviction, that was "only a legitimate
+exercise of their rights of property"; but if a priest told his flock
+that a man would imperil his soul by selling his vote or prostituting it
+to the use of a despot, the candidate whom that priest supported would
+lose his seat and be disqualified for re-election.
+
+From this time onward George Henry Moore found himself heading the same
+way as Smith O'Brien had gone. In 1861 he told the Irish people that if
+they desired freedom they must take a lesson from Italy; they must
+"become dangerous"; and he advocated the formation of a new Irish
+volunteer force to emulate that of 1782. Nothing came of this; but after
+the American war a new movement grew up, not this time among the
+landlords or the professional men, nor countenanced by the priests, but
+nursed in the fierce heart of the people. Ireland had become dangerous.
+Colonel Moore recognises rightly the difference between the Fenian
+organisation and the Young Ireland movement which had preceded it. Both
+were idealistic, but the idealism of 1848 was "the inspiration of a few
+literary gentlemen, poets, and writers." Smith O'Brien, its titular
+head, was influenced profoundly by the aristocratic conception of his
+rightful place as representing the Kings of Thomond. Fenianism was
+democratic; it was officered largely by men who had themselves fought in
+the most stubborn of modern wars and who had seen what Irish regiments
+could do in the citizen levies of Federals and Confederates. It was
+spontaneous, and it was strong; the measure of its strength is given not
+by the few flickering outbreaks easily suppressed, but by the terror
+which it inspired, and by the change which it wrought in the spirit of
+the people. Moore when he took the step, extraordinary for a man in his
+position, of enrolling himself in that sworn and secret conspiracy can
+hardly have failed to foresee the collapse of Fenianism as a fighting
+force; but he recognised that (in his son's words) "the old complacent
+toleration of schemers and dishonest politicians had vanished and a
+sturdy independence had taken its place."
+
+With the advent of that spirit the power of the Irish landlords was
+doomed. They had made their choice; when they might have made common
+cause with the whole people of Ireland they had refused to rise beyond
+their immediate personal advantage and the interests of their class.
+Moore, who was of themselves, who shared all their pleasures, who loved
+them, was forced to take a hand in their overthrow. From 1858 onward he
+had been almost entirely out of politics, living the life of a popular
+country gentleman, racing and hunting more successfully than ever; his
+most famous horse, "Croagh Patrick," ran in the 'sixties. But in 1868 he
+flung all this aside, sold his horses, and undertook to fight the
+alliance of Whig and Tory which had dominated County Mayo in the
+landlord interest for ten years.
+
+     I shall have the question settled (he said) whether one lord shall
+     drive a hundred human souls to the hustings, another fifty, another
+     a score; whether this or that squire shall call twenty, or ten, or
+     five as good men as himself "his voters" and send them up with his
+     brand on their backs to vote for an omadhaun at his bidding.
+
+He did settle it. Mayo beat the landlords then, and Mayo became the
+cradle of popular movements ever after. This most typical of Irish
+land-owning gentlemen had been forced to sever himself from his class
+and even to injure his class, and it was not by advocacy of
+self-government that he estranged so close a friend as Lord Sligo.
+Fintan Lalor's policy, rejected by the Young Irelanders in 1846, was
+beginning to take hold in 1868; the movement for self-government was
+becoming linked on to the driving force of land-hunger. In the eyes of
+Lord Sligo and all his class Tenant Right meant Landlord Wrong, and
+Moore himself was not exempt from that feeling. He suffered indeed, for
+rents that he had reduced to a figure fixed by the tenants' own
+arbitrators were withheld from him. Yet he knew clearly that it was
+necessary for the country, and not more necessary than just, to secure
+the tenants in their holdings. No one disputes now that he was right.
+But the last thing he desired was to abolish the landlords. If they did
+not like the leadership of the priests "they have," he said, "a remedy
+left; let them make themselves more popular than the priests. If the
+landlords will make common cause with the people, the people will make
+common cause with them." There was never a truer word spoken, but it
+fell on closed ears.
+
+Moore himself broke the landlords' power at the polls; their infinitely
+greater power, proceeding from control of the land, was broken by
+another Mayo man, Michael Davitt, the evicted peasant from Straide,
+close by Moore Hall. That fight was bound to come when Moore's warning
+and the warning of men like him was set at nought. What a change it has
+made! and what has been lost to Ireland!
+
+Moore died in 1870. His last year of life saw a hope that Presbyterian
+farmers of the North, interested in Tenant Right, who had been
+temporarily allied to Catholics in the struggle for Disestablishment,
+might unite solidly with the Nationalists. Even the Protestant gentry
+afforded numerous supporters to Butt's Home Rule policy at its outset.
+But of this nothing serious came. The Land Act of 1870 was ineffective,
+and it seemed that, in spite of Fenianism, all would go on as before.
+Throughout the 'seventies the landlord class was in undisturbed
+supremacy. Country gentlemen still talked in good set phrase about "the
+robbery of the Church"; in actual fact they were very complacently and
+competently helping to administer its new constitution. Agriculture was
+prosperous and rents went high, though the harsh and overbearing
+landlord was condemned by his fellows. This, however, was poor
+consolation to the tenants. In the county where I was brought up, one
+landlord was a name of terror, and there was no redress from his
+tyranny, until at last the peasantry found it for themselves. The grim
+old man died fighting hard before his brains were dashed out on the
+roadside, and two innocent people were killed along with him; but no
+sane person could fail to perceive that, within five years of his taking
+off, the whole district was improved out of knowledge. The moral to be
+drawn was only too obvious; yet none of the landlords drew it; the
+established interest of a class is too strong a thing for that class to
+shake themselves out of its influence.
+
+The men of that generation--how well I remember them! most vividly
+perhaps as they used to come in to church on Sunday morning, when the
+ladies of their families addressed themselves to devotions kneeling,
+while the men said their prayers standing, peering mysteriously into
+their tall hats--a strange ritual, of which traces may be observed at
+the House of Commons, but nowhere else, I fancy, on earth. On week days
+they lived an orderly, dignified existence in their big old-fashioned
+houses, leaving home little, though the more cultivated among them had
+travelled in their youth and knew thoroughly some foreign country. In
+their own orbit they had power, leisure, and deference, all of which set
+a stamp upon them; individuality had great scope to develop, and an able
+man among them was a man made for government. One such stands out in my
+memory. Stormy tales were told of his youth, but from himself no one
+heard a whisper of these far-off exploits; small, exquisitely neat,
+finely made and finely featured, he was courteous and gentle-spoken with
+all; but he was of those quiet creatures who breed fear. I cannot
+imagine the situation of power of responsibility from which he would
+have shrunk, or to which he would have been unequal; neither can I
+imagine him anxious in the pursuit of office. That was Parnell's type.
+Parnell's strength appears to have lain precisely in that
+self-confidence which was a law to itself and which no prestige of fame
+or authority could shake or overawe. The men who might have been
+Ireland's leaders were men extraordinarily suited for the conduct of
+affairs, but as a class they had been thrown out of their natural
+relation. Castlereagh, who in his cold efficiency had much in common
+with Parnell, accomplished a desperate deed when he made the Union
+through them. He committed their honour to justify for all time that
+transaction. If those who condemned the Union were not traitors, then
+the class from whom it was bought with cash and titles stood convicted
+of infamy; and since the heart of Ireland loathed and detested
+Castlereagh's work, the whole body of the Irish gentry found themselves
+inevitably estranged from the heart of Ireland. On one side was the
+interest of a class--and not merely the material interest but the
+interest of its honour, which sought a justification in the name of
+loyalty; on the other was the interest of Ireland; and the landlord who
+chose the side of Ireland severed himself necessarily, as Moore had to
+do, from his own friends and kin.
+
+For years now there has been moving through many minds in Ireland the
+question whether this state of things must permanently endure. Is that
+estrangement inevitable? I at least think otherwise. Throughout the last
+two decades of the nineteenth century landlord and tenant were opposed
+in a struggle for definite material interests; it was a fight not only
+for free conditions of tenure but for the reduction of rent, if not for
+its total abolition. A way of peace was found in State-aided land
+purchase, and in a reconstitution of the whole agricultural order. The
+landlords, where they have been bought out, have not even the duty of
+rent collecting. How will this affect their traditional attitude, which
+calls itself loyalty to the English connexion, but which I interpret
+rather as a traditional justification of the Union and of the hereditary
+landlord policy? If self-government is established without dissolution
+of the Union, is it not reasonable to suppose that there will be a
+change in men's dispositions?
+
+The question involved is really more serious, though of far less
+political importance, than that of Ulster. Whatever happens, the
+industrial community of Belfast and its district is not going to run
+away. That element will not be lost to Ireland; it is too strong, too
+well able to assert itself; and it is anchored by its interest. The
+ex-landlords, now that their occupation is gone, are bound to Ireland
+only by habit and attachment. At present they fulfil no essential
+function; and it will be open undoubtedly for the gentry once more to
+make an error mischievous to Ireland and disastrous to themselves. They
+may take up the line of unwilling submission, of refusal to co-operate,
+of cold-shouldering and crying down the new Parliament and the new
+Ministry. Social pressure may be exercised to keep men from seeking
+election, and so to perpetuate the existing severance between the
+leisured and wealthier classes and the main body of the nation. There
+will be strong tendencies in this direction. But on the other hand I
+think that among the men who have grown up under the new order there is
+an increasing willingness to accept the change. One friend of mine--no
+politician, and, like all non-politicians, a Unionist--said to me lately
+that he would be rather disappointed if Home Rule did not become law--he
+was "curious about it"; and he added, "I think a great many like me have
+the same feeling." Others probably have a more positive outlook, and
+desire to take an active part in the public life of their country; and
+there will be a strong desire among Irish Nationalists to bring in at
+the outset those who wish to come in. On the other hand, no less
+certainly, there will be the feeling that is natural towards those who
+wish to reap where they have not sown; and the gentry will need to make
+allowance for this. If they set out with the notion, as some did when
+Local Government was established, that places are theirs by right when
+they condescend to take them--that they are entitled to election because
+they have more money, more education, because, if you will, they are, in
+the eye of pure reason, better qualified--nothing but trouble can come
+of such a disposition. Ireland, which in George Henry Moore's time was
+the most aristocratically governed part of the British Isles, is now by
+far more democratic, at all events, than England: the poor man is on a
+level with the rich, and means to stay there. Those who want to go into
+Irish politics, under Home Rule as now, must take their chances in the
+ruck; but if they do, they will find a people ready and even eager to
+recognise their qualities, and to allot perhaps more consideration than
+is due to their social position.
+
+With all their practical democracy, the Irish have a great tenderness
+for "the old stock." In the cases (and there are many hundreds of them)
+where a landlord or professional man or Protestant clergyman has been
+for long years a real friend and support and counsellor to his poorer
+neighbours, as Irish in voice and looks and gesture as they, sharing
+their tastes and their aversions, their sport and their sorrow, yet
+divided and cut off from them by a kind of political religion, I believe
+from my heart that there will be on both sides a willingness to
+celebrate the end of that old discord in some happy compact. But on both
+sides there must be generosity and a sympathy with natural hesitations
+and reluctances. Whatever comes or goes, the old domination of the
+gentry has disappeared; yet, whatever comes or goes, men of that class
+may find a sphere of usefulness and even of power in Ireland. But this
+will be infinitely easier to achieve when the great subject of
+contention is removed, and when the ex-landlord can seek election, and
+the ex-tenant can support him, without a sense on either side of turning
+against the traditional loyalties of a class.
+
+1913.
+
+
+
+
+YESTERDAY IN IRELAND.
+
+
+"Oh, maybe it was yesterday, or forty years ago," says the verse of an
+Irish song. That is the kind of indeterminate "yesterday" which is
+described in _Irish Memories_ by two friends who have made some memories
+of Ireland imperishable. "The Ireland that Martin and I knew when we
+were children," writes Miss Somerville, "is fast leaving us; every day
+some landmark is wiped out." No one knows better than she that while in
+many parts of Ireland you must go back very close on forty years to
+reach any likeness of that old way of life, yet in other parts yesterday
+and forty years ago are very much the same. Still, she would reply, and
+I must admit, that one profound modification has affected even the most
+unchanging places, altering the whole position of the class in which she
+was born and bred. In a sense, all her memories of Ireland concern
+themselves with this change, depicting either what formerly was, and the
+process of its passing, or what yet remains and seems likely to vanish
+too. Her presentment of yesterday is well worth study, for its outlook
+is typical of the most generous and shrewdest minds among the Irish
+gentry. I use here an old-fashioned word, somewhat decried, but it is
+the only one that expresses my meaning.
+
+But readers will know that this is not only a book of memories; it is,
+if not a memoir, at least the memorial of a singularly brilliant Irish
+woman. Miss Somerville had planned to write her recollections, as she
+had written so much else, in collaboration with her cousin and comrade,
+"Martin Ross"--Miss Violet Martin, of Ross, in County Galway. It did not
+so fall out; and though in this volume one is aware that the narrator is
+often (by a sort of sub-conscious habit) speaking out of two minds, from
+a dual complex of associations, and though considerable fragments of
+Martin Ross's own writing give a justification to the joint signature,
+yet one of the two comrades is joint author now only in so far as she is
+part of all the memories, and a surviving influence little likely to
+pass away. But her stock, so to say, in the partnership remains; Galway,
+no less than Cork, is the field over which these memories travel. In the
+main, the book is concerned with recalling the joint kindred of the two
+friends and cousins, and reconstituting the surroundings and the
+atmosphere of both families. Families, however, are conceived and
+depicted in their most extended relations; figures are evoked of chief,
+vassal, page and groom, tenant and master; and with them go their
+"opposite numbers" (to borrow an army term) from chieftainess to cook.
+Chieftainesses are there unmistakably. One ex-beauty had retired from
+the Court of the Regent to Castle Townshend (Miss Somerville's personal
+background), and there lived long, "noted for her charm of manner, her
+culture and her sense of humour."
+
+     Near the end of her long life she went to the funeral of a
+     relative, leaning decorously upon the arm of a kinsman. At the
+     churchyard a countryman pushed forward between her and the coffin.
+     She thereupon disengaged her arm from that of her squire and struck
+     the countryman in the face.
+
+Miss Somerville observes that such stories may help to explain the
+French Revolution; but she adds, quite plausibly:--
+
+     It is no less characteristic of the time that the countryman's
+     attitude does not come into the story, but it seems to me probable
+     that he went home and boasted then, and for the rest of his life,
+     that old Madam---- had "bet him in a blow in the face."
+
+Undoubtedly the chieftain-spirit is admired, and not least when it shows
+itself in a woman. A more lenient and more modern example is to be found
+in the account of a dispute about bounds in a transaction under the Land
+Purchase Act. After all other agencies failed, the landlord's sister
+called the disputants before her to the disputed spot, stepped the
+distance of the land debatable, drove her walking-stick into a crevice
+of the rock (disputes are passionate in opposite ratio to the value of
+the land) and, collecting stones, built a small cairn round it. "Now
+men," she said, "in the name of God let this be the bounds." And it was
+so. "It failed the agent, and it failed the landlord, and it failed the
+priest; but Lady Mary settled it," was the summing up of one of the
+disputants. That was a chieftainess for you.
+
+Not inferior in chieftainly spirit was Martin Ross's grandfather who
+"had the family liking for a horse."
+
+     It is recorded that in a dealer's yard in Dublin he mounted a
+     refractory animal, in his frock-coat and tall hat, and took him
+     round St. Stephen's Green at a gallop, through the traffic, laying
+     into him with his umbrella.
+
+Somehow that picture gives a measure of the remoteness. Stephen's Green
+was not then a place of square-set granite pavement, tram-rails and
+large swift-moving electric trams; it was a leisurely promenade where
+large slow-moving country gentlemen turned out in tall hats and
+frock-coats. We of Miss Somerville's generation depend on our
+imagination, not on memory, to reconstruct the scene. The grandfather in
+question died before the great famine of 1847, which shook and in many
+places uprooted the old order without yet bringing in the new. His son,
+Martin Ross's father, had the famine to cope with and survived it; but
+of the second convulsion from which emerged the Ireland of to-day he saw
+only the beginning, for he died in 1873, when the organised peasant
+uprising was at most a menace. But his wife knew both periods--the bad
+times of the late 'forties and the bad times of the early eighties. The
+true link with the past for the writers of _Irish Memories_ is through
+the female line. This is a book of mothers and daughters rather than of
+fathers and sons.
+
+Martin Ross's mother went back easily in memory to the society which had
+known the Irish Parliament, had made or accepted the Union, and which,
+after the Union, exercised chieftainship in Ireland. She was the
+daughter of Chief Justice Bushe, one of Grattan's rivals in oratory,
+who, like Grattan, had opposed the Union with all the resources of his
+eloquence. Against his name in the private Castle list of voters for the
+crucial division had been written in despair one word: "Incorruptible."
+He was the common ancestor whose blood made the bond of kinship between
+Miss Somerville and Martin Ross, and both these staunch Unionist ladies
+are passionately proud of the part which their grandfather played in
+resisting the Union; just as you will find the staunchest Ulster
+Covenanters exulting in the fact that they had a forbear "out" with the
+United Irishmen at Antrim or Ballynahinch in 1798. No wonder Englishmen
+find Ireland puzzling; but Scots understand, for their own records
+abound in examples of the same paradoxes of historic sentiment.
+
+_Yesterday in Ireland_, I think, for my present purpose comes to define
+itself as the period between the famine of 1847 and the famine of
+1879--between the downfall of O'Connell and Parnell's coming to power.
+We who were born in the 'sixties grew up in the close of it, and perhaps
+recognise now more clearly than when they were with us the characters of
+our kindred who were a part of it as mature human beings. "The men and
+women, but more specially the women of my mother's family and
+generation, are a lost pattern, a vanished type." I could say the same
+as Miss Somerville. There was a spaciousness about those people, a
+disregard of forms and conventions, a habit of thinking and acting for
+themselves which really came down from a long tradition of interpreting
+the law to their own liking. Miss Somerville and her comrade knew the
+type in its fullest development, for both grew up in far-out
+Atlantic-bordering regions--Carbery of West Cork, Connemara of West
+Galway--where the countryside knew scarcely "any inhabitants but the
+gentry and their dependents. 'Where'd we be at all if it wasn't for the
+Colonel's Big Lady?' said the hungry country-women, in the Bad Times,
+scurrying, barefooted, to her in any emergency to be fed and doctored
+and scolded." So writes Miss Somerville of her mother; so might Martin
+Ross have written of her father, who was, so far as in him lay, a
+Providence for his tenantry. Yet there is a story told of Mr. Martin
+that throws a flood of light on the whole position of affairs. Who were
+indeed the dependents? And on what did they depend? The story tells of a
+widow down by Lough Corrib, long in arrears with her rent.
+
+     The Master sent to her two or three times, and in the end he walked
+     down himself, after his breakfast, and he took Thady (the steward)
+     with him. Well, when he went into the house, she was so proud to
+     see him, and "Your Honour is welcome," says she, and she put a
+     chair for him. He didn't sit down at all, but he was standing up
+     there with his back to the dresser, and the children were sitting
+     down one side the fire. The tears came from the Master's eyes,
+     Thady seen them fall down the cheek. "Say no more about the rent,"
+     says the Master to her, "you need say no more about it till I come
+     to you again." Well, it was the next winter, men were working in
+     Gurthnamuckla and Thady with them, and the Master came to the wall
+     of the field, and a letter in his hand, and he called Thady over to
+     him. What had he to show but the widow's rent that her brother in
+     America sent her.
+
+Martin Ross, writing in the light of to-day, makes this comment:--
+
+     It will not happen again; it belongs to an almost forgotten regime,
+     that was capable of abuse, yet capable too of summoning forth the
+     best impulses of Irish hearts.
+
+War, famine and pestilence--all these are capable of summoning forth
+splendid impulses; but society should not be organised to give play to
+these hazards of feeling. The fundamental truth about yesterday in
+Ireland is that everybody accepted as natural a state of affairs under
+which Irish gentry were taking rents that could not be earned on the
+land which was burdened with them. Landlord and tenant alike were really
+dependent on what was sent back by the sons and daughters of poor people
+from America to prevent the break-up of homes. The whole situation was
+false, from top to bottom. At top, a small class, physically and often
+mentally superb, full of charm, extraordinarily agreeable, fit for great
+uses, but by temperament, habit and education unequipped for its proper
+task of equipping and directing the labour out of which ultimately it
+had to live or perish. It perished. At bottom, a multitude with
+marvellous constitution, undermined by age-long under-feeding, friendly,
+most lovable, most winning, but untrained and unequipped, half-hearted
+in its business of rolling the pitiless stone up the never-ending hill.
+It survived--clinging with a desperate tenacity to the soil which so
+meagrely nourished it. But during that generation of yesterday--and how
+many generations before it?--there grew up inevitably, from the
+conditions, a traditional toleration of incompetence, a faith as it were
+in inefficiency. Ireland of yesterday was bound up in one vicious circle
+of work that was necessarily underpaid because it was inefficient, and
+work that was necessarily inefficient because it was underpaid. In the
+lower class there were no reserves; the dependants lived from hand to
+mouth, and when hand failed to find food, they had to come to the upper
+class, first for remission of its claims on them and then for actual
+subsistence. But the dependence was mutual, and there were no reserves
+at top equal to the needs of that joint hazard. Penury was only at two
+removes from the "gentry houses." While the first line of defence, the
+tenants, held good, the world went pleasantly for the Ireland of
+yesterday. But when that line broke, and starvation burst in, then the
+best men and women in the big houses flung their all into the common
+stock, and went under--as did the chief of the Martins in Connemara.
+
+That, however, happened the day before yesterday; yesterday saw nothing
+so dire. But the menace of it was always there, and the rest of Ireland
+gradually consolidated itself for a struggle to win what had long ago
+been acquired for Protestant Ulster--the right of a tenant to what his
+own labour created. The Ulster custom has done for Ulster, industrial as
+well as agricultural, more than is generally perceived. It gave in some
+degree recognition to efficiency. Tenure was there less precarious, less
+dependent on the landlord's pleasure; men were freer, work had more
+rights. There was less room for impulse, perhaps less appeal to
+affection; but when a business relation is based on impulse and
+affection, where rights are not solid and defined, the sense of
+obligation easily leads men astray. That which is given out of loyalty
+and affection comes to be taken as a due. Martin Ross--"Miss Violet,"
+whom the people of Ross called "the gentle lady," as beautiful a name as
+was ever earned by mortal--inherited with little qualification the
+landlord standpoint. She recalls the story of an election in 1872, when
+her father, going to vote in Oughterard, saw "a company of infantry
+keeping the way for Mr. Arthur Guinness (afterwards Lord Ardilaun) as he
+conveyed to the poll a handful of his tenants to vote for Captain
+Trench, he himself walking in front with the oldest of them on his arm."
+She does not ask if the tenants desired to be so conveyed. She merely
+describes how her father "ranged through the crowd incredulously, asking
+for this or that tenant, unable to believe that they had deserted him."
+When he came home, "even the youngest child of the house could see how
+great had been the blow. It was not the political defeat, severe as
+that was, it was the personal wound, and it was incurable."
+
+Looking back through all those years, the "gentle lady" can see nothing
+in that episode but a case of priestly intimidation. "One need not blame
+the sheep who passed in a frightened huddle from one fold to another."
+Yet friends of mine in Galway look back on it in a very different
+spirit; they remember the Nolan-Trench election and Captain Nolan's
+victory as a triumph of the poor, a first instalment of freedom; it
+brought with it an exultation very different from the mere outburst of
+hatred that these pages suggest. What is more, having been privileged to
+sit in the most widely representative assembly of Irishmen that modern
+Ireland has known, I can testify that to-day peer and peasant, clergy
+and laymen, those who opposed it, and those others who fought for it,
+alike admit that the change which such a victory fore-shadowed was
+necessary and was beneficent. But it was a revolution. Ireland of
+yesterday was Ireland before the revolution. The Ireland that Miss
+Somerville and Martin Ross have lived in as grown women has been a
+country in the throes of a revolution, long drawn-out, with varying
+phases, yet still incomplete. Those who judge Ireland should remember
+this. In time of revolution, life is difficult, ancient loyalties clash
+with new yet living principles, sympathy and justice even are unsure
+guides. No country could have been kept for forty years in such a
+ferment as Ireland has known without profound demoralisation. We may
+well envy those who lived more easily and quietly in the Ireland of
+yesterday, and held with an unquestioning spirit to the state of things
+in which they were born.
+
+Such were the folk of whom Miss Somerville writes with "that indomitable
+family pride that is an asset of immense value in the history of a
+country." They "took all things in their stride without introspection or
+hesitation. Their unflinching conscientiousness, their violent
+church-going (I speak of the sisters), were accompanied by a
+whole-souled love of a spree and a wonderful gift for a row." I can
+corroborate her details, especially the last. All those that I recall
+had some talent for feuds; at least, in every family there would be one
+warrior, male or female; and all had the complete contempt, not so much
+for convention as for those who were affected in their lives (or
+costumes) by any standard that was not home-made. But in all humility I
+must admit that the real heroines of this book--Mrs. Somerville and Mrs.
+Martin--outshine anything that my memory can produce. When Martin Ross
+and her mother went back to West Galway and re-established themselves at
+their old home, a letter from her to Miss Somerville describes one
+incident:--
+
+     I wish you had seen Paddy Griffy, a very active little old man, and
+     a beloved of mine, when he came down on Sunday night to welcome me.
+     After the usual hand-kissings on the steps, he put his hands over
+     his head and stood in the doorway, I suppose invoking his saint. He
+     then rushed into the hall.
+
+     "Dance, Paddy," screamed Nurse Bennett (my foster-mother, now our
+     maid-of-all-work).
+
+     And he did dance, and awfully well, too, to his own singing. Mamma,
+     who was attired in a flowing pink dressing-gown and a black hat
+     trimmed with lilac, became suddenly emulous, and with her spade
+     under her arm joined in the jig. This lasted for about a minute,
+     and was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. They skipped round the hall,
+     they changed sides, they swept up to each other and back again and
+     finished with the deepest curtseys.
+
+My own mother would gladly have done the same on a like occasion, but
+she lacked Mrs. Martin's talent for the jig. Mrs. Somerville is sketched
+with a free and humorous hand. I quote only one detail, but it shows the
+real Irishwoman, more deeply in touch with Ireland's traditional life
+than any Gaelic League could bring her. Question arose how to find a
+suitable offering for 'an old servant of forty years' standing, whose
+fancies were few and her needs none.' "Give her a nice shroud," said
+Mrs. Somerville, "there's nothing in the world she'd like so well as
+that."
+
+Shakespeare could not have outdone that intuition, and only one of the
+larger breed would have been unconventional enough to suggest what the
+younger generation, hampered by other feelings than those of West
+Carbery, "were too feeble to accept."
+
+These two traits belong to the harmonious and thoroughly Irish grouping
+in which such ladies as Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Somerville were central
+figures of the whole countryside. That grouping exists no longer, and
+this book has to describe the discord which interrupted that harmony.
+Martin Ross's elder brother, Robert Martin (famous in his day as the
+writer and singer of _Ballyhooly_, and a score of other topical songs),
+left his work as a London journalist to help in fighting the first
+campaign which brought the word "boycott" into usage.
+
+     It was at this work (his sister writes), that Robert knew for the
+     first time what it was to have every man's hand against him, to
+     meet the stare of hatred, the jeer and the sidelong curse; to face
+     endless drives on outside cars with his revolver in his hand; to
+     plan the uphill tussle with boycotted crops and cattle for which a
+     market could scarcely be found; to know the imminence of death,
+     when by accidentally choosing one of two roads he evaded the man
+     with a gun who had gone out to wait for him.
+
+Robert Martin faced, in a word, the earliest and ugliest phases of that
+Irish revolution, which was the Nemesis of the all too easy and too
+pleasant ways of yesterday in Ireland. Later, after his death, Martin
+Ross herself had to gain some experience of the same trouble. When she
+went back with her mother to re-establish the family home from which
+they had been fifteen years absent, there was a hostile element in the
+parish, and gracious hospitality was ungraciously met. An attempt was
+made to keep children from a children's party which she had organised.
+The move was half-hearted and her energy defeated it, but that the
+attempt should be made was such "a facer" as she had never before known.
+Like many another ugly thing in Ireland, it originated in that cowardly
+fear of public opinion which is to be found on the seamy side of all
+revolutions; and it did not stand against her "gallant fight to restore
+the old ways, the old friendships."
+
+The old ways, in so far as they meant the old friendships, she might
+hope to restore, although the friendship would, half consciously, take
+on a new accent; personality would count for more in it, position for
+less. But the old relation which authorised a kind-hearted landlord to
+feel that his tenants had "deserted him" because they voted against his
+wish in an election--that is gone for ever; and gone, at all events, for
+the present, is the local leadership of the gentry.
+
+I question whether it is realised that in parting from that leadership
+Ireland lost what was in a sense Home Rule. In the "yesterday" of which
+I write Ireland was governed in all its parochial and most intimate
+affairs by a class or a caste; but that governing class was Irish--Irish
+with a limitation, no doubt, yet still indisputably Irish. When that
+rule perished, when that class lost its local ascendancy, government
+became the bastard compromise that we have known, with power
+inharmoniously divided between officialdom and agitators. The law was
+framed and administered by officials, often English or Scotch,
+possessing no authority except what the law conferred on them. Authority
+lay very largely with popular leaders; but leadership and authority
+alike were purely personal, depending on a man's own qualities and the
+support which they evoked. No man was born to it as of right, and such
+authority is far more precarious than the established power of a
+governing class. This is a weakness in all democratically-governed
+countries, but where there is self-government, the individual, in
+entering upon office, acquires the support and the prestige of a
+long-established machinery of power. He ceases to be merely the
+individual when he becomes part of the Government. For the Irish leaders
+this reinforcement to the personal authority has never existed; they
+have been at a terrible disadvantage as compared with all other
+democratic politicians; and consequently the power exercised by them has
+always, except perhaps at Parnell's zenith, been far less than was the
+combined authority of the gentry before the landlord rule was broken.
+Those who shared in that authority acted, and could afford to act, with
+unquestioning confidence; they were surer of themselves, than is any
+popular leader or any official in Ireland of to-day. It seldom occurred
+to them to ask whether their conduct in any juncture might meet with
+approval; being a law to other people, they were naturally a law to
+themselves, and an Irish law. Their power was excessive, and demoralised
+them by its lack of limitation; yet many of the qualities which it bred,
+made them an element of great value in the country. These qualities are
+by no means extinct in their kindred, nor is the tradition of their
+right to leadership forgotten.
+
+Of one thing Miss Somerville and those for whom she speaks (she is a
+real spokeswoman) may be well assured. Whatever be the surface mood of
+the moment, whatever the passing effect of war's hectic atmosphere,
+nothing is more deeply realised throughout Ireland than the need to
+restore the old ways, the old friendships--the need to bring back the
+gentry to their old uses in Ireland, and to so much of leadership as
+should be theirs by right of fitness. When the history of the Irish
+Convention comes to be fully recorded, it will be seen that a great
+desire was universally felt, cordially uttered, in that assembly, to
+bridge over the gulf which divides us from yesterday in Ireland, and to
+recover for the future much of what was admirable, valuable and lovable
+in a past that is not unkindly remembered. Indeed, it is plain that Miss
+Somerville has felt the influences that were abroad on the winds, when
+she wrote of her comrade:--
+
+     Her love of Ireland, combined with her distrust of some of those
+     newer influences in Irish affairs to which her letters refer, made
+     her dread any weakening of the links that bind the United Kingdom
+     into one; but I believe that if she were here now, and saw the
+     changes that the past eighteen months have brought to Ireland, she
+     would be quick to welcome the hope that Irish politics are lifting
+     at last out of the controversial rut of centuries, and that
+     although it has been said of East and West that "never the two
+     shall meet," North and South will yet prove that in Ireland it is
+     always the impossible that happens.
+
+North and South--that is a more difficult gulf to bridge, for the one I
+have been speaking of is only a breach to repair. But industrial
+Protestant Ulster and the rest of Ireland have never really been one.
+Unity there has not to be re-established, but created. Martin Ross went
+to the North only once "at the tremendous moment of the signing of the
+Ulster Covenant," and she was profoundly impressed by what she saw. She
+wrote about it publicly and she wrote also privately (in a letter which
+I had the honour to receive) a passage well worth quoting:--
+
+     I did not know the North at all. What surprised me about the place
+     was the feeling of cleverness and go, and also the people struck me
+     as being hearty. If only the South would go up North and see what
+     they are doing there, and how they are doing it, and ask them to
+     show them how, it would make a good deal of difference. And then
+     the North should come South and see what nice people we are, and
+     how we do that.
+
+When that reciprocal pilgrimage was accomplished by the Convention, her
+anticipations were more than justified. But how clever she was! In a
+flash, she, coming there a stranger, hits on the word which describes
+Ulster and differentiates it from the rest of Ireland. "Hearty," that is
+what they are; it is the good side of their self-content. No people that
+is in revolution can be hearty--least of all when revolution has dragged
+on through more than a generation. Distrust of your comrades--distrust
+of your leaders--self-distrust--these are the characteristic vices of
+revolution (look at Russia), and they sow a bitter seed. Protestant
+Ulster has never known revolution; for it yesterday and to-day have been
+happily, naturally, continuous. Political change it has known, normal
+and beneficent; land purchase came to Ulster as a by-product of what the
+rest of Ireland endured in torment, and agony, and self-mutilation.
+Clever the Northerns are, but their cleverness issues prosperously in
+action; they carry on in a solidly-established order; they have not
+needed to break down before they could begin to build. That is why their
+heartiness stood out when they were assembled, as I have seen them in a
+common council of Irishmen, which was also, thank heaven, a
+companionship. But the world at large can see it exhibited in another
+way. Contrast the work of the Ulster Players with that of the Abbey
+Theatre. _The Drone_ is perhaps not the best of new Irish comedies, but
+it is infinitely the pleasantest; there is no bitter tang in its hearty
+humour. Even in _The Enthusiast_, a sketch which has some touch of
+pessimism, there is little more than a good-humoured shrug of the
+shoulders when the Enthusiast abandons his pretensions to make himself
+heard against the banging of Orange drums. I find a very different note,
+not merely in the work of Synge, of Boyle, Colum, Lennox Robinson, and
+the rest of the Abbey dramatists, but even in the books of which Miss
+Somerville was joint author. When Ireland is seen with the eyes, for
+instance, of her Major Yeates, is not the whole attitude one of amused
+and acquiescent resignation? Take the hunting out of it (with all the
+humours of the hunt)--take the shooting and fishing--and what is left
+but a life (to borrow a phrase from Mr. George Moore) "as melancholy as
+bog-water and as ineffectual." Miss Somerville would probably decline
+to imagine an Ireland with these unthinkable suppressions, but after
+all, we cannot live by or for sport alone. What gave dignity and reality
+to the life of yesterday was leadership in one class, and loyalty in the
+other. Leadership resting on ownership is gone now, dead as the dodo;
+what is left for the like (say) of Mr. Flurry Knox if he should begin to
+take himself seriously? You can easily make a soldier of him; we have
+all met him in trenches and observed his airy attitude in No Man's Land.
+But soldiering has generally meant expatriation. For my part, I hope
+some day to see this gentleman (or his like) play a useful part in some
+battalion of Irish territorials--some home service offshoot of the
+Connaught Rangers. But that is not enough. If those who, like Miss
+Somerville, love Ireland's yesterday and desire to link it up with a
+worthy to-morrow, there must be a wider understanding of Ireland, not in
+the North only, but in that element of the South and West which stands
+to-day in a sense morally expatriated. The Irish gentry who complain
+that their tenants "deserted" them must learn where they themselves
+failed their tenants. Leadership cannot depend merely on a power to
+evict, and they would to-day repudiate the desire for a leadership so
+grounded. But between free men where there is not comprehension there
+can be no leadership.
+
+I take first what is most difficult--the very heart of antagonism.
+Everyone who desires to understand Ireland to-day should read Patrick
+Pearse's posthumous book, called boldly _The Story of a Success_.[1] It
+is the spiritual history of Pearse's career as a schoolmaster, edited
+and completed by his pupil, Desmond Ryan; and it is a book by which no
+one can be justly offended--a book instinct with nobility, chivalry and
+high courtesy, free from all touch of bitterness; a book, too, shot
+through and slashed with that tragic irony which the Greeks knew to be
+the finest thrill in literature--the word spoken, to which the foreknown
+event gives an echo of double meaning. Pearse was concerned with
+Ireland's yesterday; he desired to bring the present and the future into
+organic rotation with the past. But his yesterday was not Miss
+Somerville's nor mine. The son of an English mechanic and a Galway
+woman, he was brought up in Connemara after the landlord power had
+ceased to exist. Ireland's past for him and Irish tradition were seen
+through the medium of an imagination in touch only with the peasant
+life, but inspired by books and literature, written and spoken. His
+yesterday was of no definite past, for he had been born in a revolution
+when the immediate past was obliterated. In his vision a thousand years
+were no more than the watch of some spellbound chivalry, waiting for the
+voice that should say, "It is the time." Cuchulain and Robert Emmet were
+his inspirations, but the champion of the legendary Red Branch cycle and
+the young revolutionary of Napoleon's days were near to him one as the
+other, in equally accessible communion. Going back easily to the heroic
+legends, on which, though blurred in their outline, his boyhood had been
+fostered by tellers of long-transmitted tales at a Connemara hearthside,
+he found the essential beauty and significance where more learned though
+less cultured readers have been bewildered by what seemed to them wild
+extravagances of barbarism. What he gathered from them did not lie
+inert, but quickened in him and in others, for he was the revolutionary
+as schoolmaster--the most drastic revolutionary of all. In the school
+review which was the first vehicle for these writings of his, he hoped
+to found "the rallying point for the thought and aspirations of all
+those who would bring back again in Ireland that Heroic Age which
+reserved its highest honour for the hero who had the most childlike
+heart, for the king who had the largest pity, and for the poet who
+visioned the truest image of beauty." All his theory of education was
+based on the old Irish institution of fosterage, which was no mere
+physical tie of the breast; the child sent to be fostered was sent to be
+bred and trained, and it was a tie stronger than that of its blood or of
+the breast. _Irish Memories_ shows incidentally how great a part this
+fosterage played in the Ross of yesterday--that family with its
+multitude of children was bound to the countryside by all the "Nursies."
+But the Martin household, and all similar households were, in a less
+literal sense, fostered by the peasantry at large. The truest part of
+education should be to know your own country (a principle much neglected
+in Ireland), and which of us all, who had the good fortune to be brought
+up in touch with Irish peasant life, does not realise our debt? We
+received a devotion, an affection, for which no adequate return could be
+made--it is the nature of fosterage that the fosterer should give more
+than can ever be requited; but we gained also our real knowledge, in so
+far as we ever had it, of the countryside, the traditional wisdom, the
+inherited way of life. There was more to be got if we had the wit to
+assimilate it. Almost all of modern Irish literature that has lasting
+value is evoked from elements floating in peasant memory, in the peasant
+mind, and in the coloured peasant speech of an Ireland which keeps
+unbroken descent from a long line of yesterdays. Mr. Yeats is only the
+chief of those who draw from this source. Miss Somerville herself and
+her cousin must have known well that the real worth of their work lies
+in their instinct for the poetry which, more specially in
+Gaelic-speaking regions, sits in rags by roadside and chimney corner.
+Irish poetry is not only the tragic voice of the keene; Gaelic had its
+comic muse as well, a robust virago, of the breed which produced
+Aristophanes and Rabelais--and Slipper with his gift for epic narrative
+is a camp-follower of that regiment.
+
+[Footnote 1: "The Story of a Success." By P. H. Pearse. Being a Record of
+St. Erda's College, September, 1908, to Easter, 1916. Edited by Desmond
+Ryan, B.A. Maunsel & Co.]
+
+Yet in Miss Somerville's appreciation there is often--not always--a
+sense of the incongruity as well as of the beauty in peasant speech. The
+woman crying for alms of bread who described her place of habitation, "I
+do be like a wild goose over on the side of Drominidy Wood," moves to
+laughter as well as to pity with the dignity of her phrase. Ireland so
+felt is Ireland perceived from the outside--seen as a picturesque ruin.
+You cannot so see Pearse; he is too strong for even compassionate
+laughter. What he embodies is the central strength of Irish
+nationalism--its disregard of the immediate event.
+
+     Wise men have told me that I ought never to set my foot on a path
+     unless I can see clearly whither it will lead me. But that
+     philosophy would condemn most of us to stand still till we rot.
+     Surely one can do no more than assure one's self that each step one
+     takes is right; and as to the rightness of a step one is
+     fortunately answerable only to one's conscience and not to the wise
+     men of the counting house. The street will pass judgment on our
+     enterprises according as they have "succeeded" or "failed." But if
+     one can feel that one has striven faithfully to do a right thing,
+     does not one stand ultimately justified, no matter what the issue
+     of one's attempt, no matter what the sentence of the street?
+
+By such teaching he commended to his scholars, and to Ireland, the
+spirit which he desired to see expressed in "that laughing gesture of a
+young man that is going into battle or climbing to a gibbet." Strange
+country, that has the gibbet always before the eyes and almost before
+the aspiration of its idealists! It was so yesterday--in all the
+yesterdays--and yet the reason is plain. All the aspirations of such
+idealists have been regarded as criminal by the class for which Miss
+Somerville and her cousin speak--criminal and menacing to those who,
+holding the power, arrogated to themselves a monopoly of loyalty. They
+have always conceived of Pearse and his like as thirsting for their
+blood. Miss Edgeworth, in a letter printed for the first time in _Irish
+Memories_, writes:--"I fear our throats will be cut by order of
+O'Connell and Co. very soon." We know enough to-day about O'Connell to
+realise how far this estimate lay from the truth of things; yet Miss
+Somerville herself talks about "Parnell and his wolf-pack." Justin
+McCarthy, John Redmond, Willie Redmond--these were some of the wolves
+who presumably wanted to tear Miss Somerville's kindred to pieces. That
+is where the change must come; there must be among the gentry some
+generous understanding of Nationalist leaders before the grave has
+closed over them. Anyone can see what is bad in Sinn Fein, but no one
+can fight that evil effectively, no one can convert to better uses the
+ill-guided force which Sinn Fein represents, until he understands what
+is best in it. Sinn Fein has largely replaced a movement which, in its
+later phases, dwelt perhaps too much on the material advantages which it
+offered as the reward of support. Sinn Fein's strength has lain not in
+what it has offered, but in what it has asked; it has asked for
+devotion, and Pearse certainly both gave that and received it. Such was
+his teaching, and I do not know a better saying for the Irish gentry to
+ponder over than the last sentence in these essays of his: "The highest
+thing anyone can do is to serve."
+
+That temper was perhaps lacking in the Ireland of yesterday which Miss
+Somerville so lovingly describes. To command loyalty as a right, to
+reward it by generosity, by indulgence--this made part of the ideal of
+leadership; but scarcely to be laborious either in rendering or exacting
+capable work.
+
+The old way of life was good for children, as Martin Ross describes it
+in her sketch of her brother's upbringing.
+
+     Everything in those early days of his was large and vigorous; tall
+     trees to climb, great winds across the lake to wrestle with,
+     strenuous and capable talk upstairs and downstairs, in front of
+     furnaces of turf and logs, long drives and the big Galway welcome
+     at the end of them.
+
+But for the grown men, it lacked one thing: effort. Pleasant it was;
+lots of everything, lots of hunting, lots of game on the moors and bogs,
+lots of fish in lake and river, lots of beef and mutton on the farm,
+lots of logs and turf, lots of space--above all, lots of time, and
+always the spirit for a spree that made everyone "prefer good fun to a
+punctual dinner." There was only one deficiency: that way of life was
+apt to be short of cash. It was, in short, a life that could not pay its
+way. The "big Galway welcome" is just as big with a sounder economic
+system, that rests solidly on men's own work. Anyone who knows Western
+Ireland can tell you that the quality of work is better on the land
+where men are their own masters than it was in the old days. Yet even
+there we are not out of the old vicious circle of under-pay and
+under-work; and in the industrial life we are fully entangled in it. But
+here also the revolutionary as schoolmaster has appeared. To my thinking
+the most momentous apparition in Ireland of our times is that of Mr.
+Ford, who is paying American wage rates for labour in Cork, and
+calculating, not to get value for his money at once, but to teach labour
+to be worth it. According to his gospel, as it was expounded to me, you
+will not get efficiency by offering to pay the wages of efficiency when
+labour becomes efficient: you must first provide the conditions of
+efficiency and then teach, just as in the army your first care is to get
+a recruit fit and your second to make him thorough in his ground work.
+That is the practical recognition of what yesterday in Ireland failed to
+recognise.
+
+Nor does this ideal of strenuous and capable work exclude either the
+strenuous and capable talk of Martin Ross's Galway household or anything
+else that was excellent in the old way. Certainly the most laborious and
+the most prosperous peasant household that I have ever known (and for
+many months I was part of it) was the most thoroughly and traditionally
+Irish, except that it was removed by one generation from Gaelic speech.
+But the whole cast of mind was Gaelic, remote as the poles from that
+"newer Ireland" which is in revolt against all tradition of
+authority--and, if they only knew it, against all Irish tradition. Miss
+Somerville thinks, as a page in her book shows, that the newer Ireland
+has lost the endearing courtesy which is imposed by the genius of the
+Gaelic tongue, and is for that matter to be found in every line of
+Pearse's essays. We can educate back to that without any detriment; we
+can be as efficient and as courteous as the Japanese. Another thing is
+gone. Ireland of yesterday, even in its poverty, was a merry country;
+to-day, even in its prosperity, it is full of bitter, mirthless rancour
+and hate. It will be a great thing if we can help to preserve for
+Ireland the exquisite benediction which a beggar woman in Skibbereen
+laid upon Martin Ross: "Sure, ye're always laughing! That ye may laugh
+in the sight of the glory of Heaven."
+
+1918.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Irish Books and Irish People, by Stephen Gwynn
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH BOOKS AND IRISH PEOPLE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22264.txt or 22264.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/2/6/22264/
+
+Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/22264.zip b/22264.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c2baa46
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22264.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..11885e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #22264 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22264)