Irish mother, his Galway birth, and his Trinity College, Dublin,
education. For the Irish tongue is musical in my ear, and the Irish
nature dear to my heart. Only in Ireland is it that if you stop to ask
a worn-out ragged woman the way to some old monument, she will say:
"Sure, then, my darlin', it's just up the hill and round the corner,
and then any one will tell you the way. And it's there you'll see the
place where the blessed Saint Patrick set his foot, and his blessing be
on yer." Old women as poor as she in other nations would never be as
bright and as friendly and as garrulous. And where, out of Ireland,
will you see a whole town crowd into a station to say good-bye to half
a dozen emigrants, till the platform is a heaving mass of men and
women, struggling, climbing over each other for a last kiss, crying,
keening, laughing, all in a breath, till all the air is throbbing and
there's a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes as the train
steams out? Where, out of Ireland, will you be bumping along the
streets on an outside car, beside a taciturn Jarvey, who, on suddenly
discovering that you are shadowed by "Castle" spies, becomes
loquaciously friendly, and points out everything that he thinks will
interest you? Blessings on the quick tongues and warm hearts, on the
people so easy to lead, so hard to drive. And blessings on the ancient
land once inhabited by mighty men of wisdom, that in later times became
the Island of Saints, and shall once again be the Island of Sages, when
the Wheel turns round.

My maternal grandfather was a typical Irishman, much admired by me and
somewhat feared also, in the childish days. He belonged to a decayed
Irish family, the Maurices, and in a gay youth, with a beautiful wife
as light-hearted as himself, he had merrily run through what remained
to him in the way of fortune. In his old age, with abundant snow-white
hair, he still showed the hot Irish blood on the lightest provocation,