man soul is
like any other human soul, and therefore the love of God for any human
soul is infinite, for no other soul can satisfy the same need in God."
A few nights after this I awoke to see the loveliest people I have ever
seen. A young man and a young girl dressed in olive-green raiment, cut
like old Greek raiment, were standing at my bedside. I looked at the
girl and noticed that her dress was gathered about her neck into a kind
of chain, or perhaps into some kind of stiff embroidery which
represented ivy-leaves. But what filled me with wonder was the
miraculous mildness of her face. There are no such faces now. It was
beautiful, as few faces are beautiful, but it had neither, one would
think, the light that is in desire or in hope or in fear or in
speculation. It was peaceful like the faces of animals, or like
mountain pools at evening, so peaceful that it was a little sad. I
thought for a moment that she might be the beloved of Aengus, but how
could that hunted, alluring, happy, immortal wretch have a face like
this? Doubtless she was from among the children of the Moon, but who
among them I shall never know.

1902.

KIDNAPPERS

A little north of the town of Sligo, on the southern side of Ben
Bulben, some hundreds of feet above the plain, is a small white square
in the limestone. No mortal has ever touched it with his hand; no sheep
or goat has ever browsed grass beside it. There is no more inaccessible
place upon the earth, and few more encircled by awe to the deep
considering. It is the door of faery-land. In the middle of night it
swings open, and the unearthly troop rushes out. All night the gay
rabble sweep to and fro across the land, invisible to all, unless
perhaps where, in some more than commonly "gentle" place--Drumcliff or
Drum-a-hair--the nightcapped heads of faery-doctors may be thrust from
their doors to see what mischief the "gentry" are doing. To their
trained eyes and ears the fields are covered by red-hatted riders, and
the air is full of shrill voices--a sound like whistling, as an ancient
Scottish seer has recorded, and wholly different from the talk of the
angels, who "speak much in the throat, like the Irish," as Lilly, the
astrologer, has wisely said. If there be a new-born baby or new-wed
bride in the neighbourhood, the nightcapped "doctors" will peer with
more than common care, for the unearthly troop do not always return
empty-handed. Sometimes a new-wed bride or a new-born