of any gain that is in victory. They live
always as if they were playing a game; and so far as they have any
deliberate purpose at all, it is that they may become great gentlemen
and be worthy of the songs of poets. It has been said, and I think the
Japanese were the first to say it, that the four essential virtues are
to be generous among the weak, and truthful among one's friends, and
brave among one's enemies, and courteous at all times; and if we
understand by courtesy not merely the gentleness the story-tellers have
celebrated, but a delight in courtly things, in beautiful clothing and
in beautiful verse, one understands that it was no formal succession of
trials that bound the Fianna to one another. Only the Table Round, that
is indeed, as it seems, a rivulet from the same river, is bound in a
like fellowship, and there the four heroic virtues are troubled by the
abstract virtues of the cloister. Every now and then some noble knight
builds himself a cell upon the hill-side, or leaves kind women and
joyful knights to seek the vision of the Grail in lonely adventures. But
when Oisin or some kingly forerunner--Bran, son of Febal, or the
like--rides or sails in an enchanted ship to some divine country, he but
looks for a more delighted companionship, or to be in love with faces
that will never fade. No thought of any life greater than that of love,
and the companionship of those that have drawn their swords upon the
darkness of the world, ever troubles their delight in one another as it
troubles Iseult amid her love, or Arthur amid his battles. It is one of
the ailments of our speculation that thought, when it is not the
planning of something, or the doing of something or some memory of a
plain circumstance separates us from one another because it makes us
always more unlike, and because no thought passes through another's ear
unchanged. Companionship can only be perfect when it is founded on
things, for things are always the same under the hand, and at last one
comes to hear with envy of the voices of boys lighting a lantern to
ensnare moths, or of the maids chattering in the kitchen about the fox
that carried off a turkey before breakfast. This book is full of
fellowship untroubled like theirs, and made noble by a courtesy that has
gone perhaps out of the world. I do not know in literature better
friends and lovers. When one of the Fianna finds Osgar dying the proud
death of a young man, and asks is it well with him,