, primitive folk, simple in
speech but with that fundamental depth men have who are much in nature
in companionship with the elements, the elder brothers of humanity. It
must have been out of such a boyhood and such intimacies with natural
and unsophisticated people that there came to him the understanding of
the heroes of the Red Branch. How pallid, beside the ruddy chivalry
who pass, huge and fleet and bright, through O'Grady's pages, appear
Tennyson's bloodless Knights of the Round Table, fabricated in the study
to be read in the drawing room, as anemic as Burne Jones' lifeless men
in armour. The heroes of ancient Irish legend reincarnated in the mind
of a man who could breathe into them the fire of life, caught from sun
and wind, their ancient deities, and send them forth to the world to do
greater deeds, to act through many men and speak through many voices.
What sorcery was in the Irish mind that it has taken so many years to
win but a little recognition for this splendid spirit; and that others
who came after him, who diluted the pure fiery wine of romance he gave
us with literary water, should be as well known or more widely read. For
my own, part I can only point back to him and say whatever is Irish
in me he kindled to life, and I am humble when I read his epic tale,
feeling how much greater a thing it is for the soul of a writer to
have been the habitation of a demi-god than to have had the subtlest
intellections.

We praise the man who rushes into a burning mansion and brings out its
greatest treasure. So ought we to praise this man who rescued from the
perishing Gaelic tradition its darling hero and restored him to us,
and I think now that Cuculain will not perish, and he will be invisibly
present at many a council of youth, and he will be the daring which
lifts the will beyond itself and fires it for great causes, and he will
be also the courtesy which shall overcome the enemy that nothing else
may overcome.

I am sure that Standish O'Grady would rather I should speak of his work
and its bearing on the spiritual life of Ireland, than about himself,
and, because I think so, in this reverie I have followed no set plan but
have let my thoughts run as they will. But I would not have any to think
that this man was only a writer, or that he could have had the heroes
of the past for spiritual companions, without himself being inspired to
fight dragons and wizardry. I have sometimes regretted that contemporary
p