the Hill of Howth,
And sunlight on the Golden Spears,
And sunlight out on Dublin Bay.

So one who has known Dublin might well exclaim on reading "Mary, Mary"
east or west of Eirinn.

James Stephens brought a fresh and distinctive element into the new
Irish literature--an imaginative exuberance that in its rush of
expression became extravagant, witty, picturesque and lovely. His work
began to appear about 1906. Like the rest of the young Irish writers
he made his appearance in the weekly journal "Sinn Fein," contributing
to it his first poems and his mordant or extravagant essays and stories.
At once he made a public for himself. His first poems were published
in a volume called "Insurrections" and his public became a wide one.
"Mary, Mary" brought out in 1912 was his first prose book. His next, the
unclassifiable "Crock of Gold," was given the De Polignac Prize in 1914.
Since then he has published two other prose books--"Here Are Ladies" and
"The Demi-Gods," with three books of verse, "The Hill of Vision," "Songs
from the Clay," and "The Rocky Road to Dublin."

"Insurrections," written just before "Mary, Mary," has vivid
revelations of personality. "I saw God--do you doubt it?" says Tomas
an Buile in the "pub."--

I saw God. Do you doubt it?
Do you dare to doubt it?
I saw the Almighty Man. His hand
Was resting on a mountain, and
He looked upon the World and all about it:
I saw Him plainer than you see me now,
You mustn't doubt it.

He was not satisfied;
His look was all dissatisfied.
His beard swung on a wind far out of sight
Behind the world's curve, and there was light
Most fearful from His forehead, and He sighed,
"That star went always wrong, and from the start
I was dissatisfied."

He lifted up His hand--
I say He heaved a dreadful hand
Over the spinning Earth, then I said "Stay,
You must not strike it, God; I'm in the way;
And I will never move from where I stand."
He said, "Dear child, I feared that you were dead,"
And stayed His hand.

His God is never a lonely God--he has need of humanity, and the quick
champion of humanity springs straight into the love of God. Such is
the intuition that is in all James Stephens' books.

He is the only author I have ever known whose talk is like his books.
The prodigality of humour, intuition and searching thought that he
puts into his pages he