ort, seemingly swallowed in oblivion and futility; perhaps contact
with men on your own side whose presence there is a puzzle, who have no
character and no conception of the grandeur of the Cause, and whose
mean, petty, underhand jealousies numb you--you who think anyone
claiming so fine a flag as ours should be naturally brave,
straightforward and generous; perhaps the seemingly overwhelming
strength of the enemy, and the listlessness of thousands who would hail
freedom with rapture, but who now stand aloof in despair--and along with
all this and intensifying it, the voice of our self-complacent practical
friend, who has but sarcasm for a high impulse, and for an immutable
principle the latest expedient of the hour. Through such an experience
must the soldier of freedom live. But as surely as such an hour comes,
there comes also a star to break the darkened sky; let those who feel
the battle-weariness at times remember. When in places there may be but
one or two to fight, it may seem of no avail; still let them be true
and their numbers will be multiplied: love of truth is infectious. When
progress is arrested, don't brood on what is, but on what was once
achieved, what has since survived, and what we may yet achieve. If some
have grown lax and temporise a little, with more firmness on your part
mingle a little sympathy for them. It is harder to live a consistent
life than die a brave death. Most men of generous instincts would rouse
all their courage to a supreme moment and die for the Cause; but to rise
to that supreme moment frequently and without warning is the burden of
life for the Cause; and it is because of its exhausting strain and
exacting demands that so many men have failed. We must get men to
realise that to live is as daring as to die. But confusion has been made
in our time by the glib phrase: "You are not asked now to die for
Ireland, but to live for her," without insisting that the life shall aim
at the ideal, the brave and the true. To slip apologetically through
existence is not life. If such a mean philosophy went abroad, we would
soon find the land a place of shivering creatures, without the capacity
to live or the courage to die--calamity, surely. All these circumstances
make for the hour of depression; and it may well be in such an hour,
amid apathy and treachery, cold friends and active enemies, with
worn-down frame and baffled mind, you, pleading for the Old Cause, may
feel your voice is indeed a