sorbed the whole energy of the nation. Groups of men
inspired with a love of the arts sprang up here and there. In 1890
Yeats proved himself a real prophet when he wrote: "A true literary
consciousness--national to the centre--seems gradually to be forming
out of all this disguising and prettifying, this penumbra of
half-culture. We are preparing likely enough for a new Irish literary
movement--like that of '48--that will show itself in the first lull
in politics."

Responsive to the need of the young writers associated with Yeats,
the National Literary Society was founded in Dublin in 1892, and a
year later London Irishmen, among them men already distinguished in
letters, founded in the English metropolis the Irish Literary
Society. From the presses in Dublin, in London, and in New York as
well, books began to appear in rapid succession--slender volumes of
verse, novels, short stories, essays, plays, translations, and
remakings of Irish myths and legends, all inspired by, and closely
related to, the past or the present of Ireland, voicing an
essentially national spirit and presenting the noblest traits of
Irish life and character.

Not content with the organization of the two literary societies,
Yeats, with courage and relentless tenacity, cast about to realize
his long-cherished dream of a theatre that should embody the ideals
of the Revival. In Lady Gregory, and in Edward Martyn, an Irishman of
large means, who with both pen and purse lent a willing hand, he
found two ardent laborers for his vineyard. George Moore, who in the
event proved a fish out of water in Ireland, Yeats and Martyn
contrived to lure from his London lodgings and his cosmopolitan ways,
and to enlist in the theatrical enterprise. The practical knowledge
of the stage which this gifted _enfant terrible_ of literature
contributed was doubtless of great value in the early days of the
dramatic adventure, though Moore's free thoughts, frank speech, and
mordant irony brought an element of discord into Dublin literary
circles, which may well have left Yeats and his associates with a
feeling that they had paid too dear for a piper to whose tunes they
refused to dance. Be that as it may, in 1899 Yeats's dream was
measurably realized, and the Irish Literary Theatre established, to
be succeeded a little later by the Irish National Theatre Society.
Enough, however, of the dramatic aspect of the Revival, which
receives separate treatment elsewhere in these pa