Dreams for Ireland (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903. Excerpt: ... VI. THE ENDURANCE OF THE PRIMAL. To-day we hear much of the vulgarity, the grossness of modern life, of the stateliness and dignity of the past; and yet a little examination into the essences of things seems to show us that we have not changed so greatly after all. In Ireland we are specially concerning ourselves about the beautification of our modernity; even our workshops are showing signs of the craving for the exquisite and the spacious which is welling up in us; of late we have come to hear the stirring of the grass, the soft, insistent whistle of the wind in the heather; and so we meditate much, often despairingly, upon the problem of our complex and hurried existence. A great man has told us that a true poet can see the inherent beauty in the smoke--the stir of commercialism; he spoke with regard to the lifeprinciple manifested in such activity. When the ground of our dearest memories is changed for us by the force of this life-principle, when the hills which are specially sacred to us are made in turn to play their part in the material life struggle, the consolation of that poet seems but as the mocking laughter of witches. Is it not always so? the idealist's laugh, his counsel, his word of cheer, become warped as they pass into our lower minds. Perhaps each man fears the mockery of his brother; perhaps a homely, earth-born sentiment speaks words of gloomy discouragement, for it is a truth that the idealist speaks for the most part unheeded, nay, even reviled. The idealist sees the essence; to see the essence is to live in a green world of singing birds and running streams: it is to forget all impurity, to know no fear; only this poet-soul must never glance downwards, for then in an instant he would fall into a slough of putrid waters, on the brin...