paralysed her. It was only suspended by a step that merely deferred the
struggle; the strife is again threatening. All the powers are so
threatened and their efforts to defer the hour are equally feverish and
fruitless; for the hour is pressing and may flash on the world when 'tis
least prepared. Let who will deride us, but let us prepare. We may not
guide our steps with the certainty of prophets, nor hope by our
beautiful schemes to make a perfect state; but we can only come near to
perfection in the light of a perfect ideal, and however far below it we
may remain, we can at least, under its inspiration, reach an existence
rational and human: our justification for a brave effort lies in that
the governments of this time are neither one nor the other. He who
thinks Ireland's struggle to express her own mind, to give utterance to
her own tongue, to stand behind her own frontier, is but a sentiment
will be surprised to find it leads him to this point. Herein is the
justification and the strength of the movement. Men are deriding things
around them, of the significance of which they have not the remotest
idea. Ireland is calling her children to a common banner, to the defence
of her frontier, to the building up of a national life, harmonious and
beautiful--a conception of citizenship, from which a right is conceded,
not because it can be compelled, but because it is just: to the
foundation of a state that will by its defence of the least powerful
prove all powerful, that will be strong because true, beautiful because
free, full of the music of her olden speech and caught by the magic of
her encircling sea.




CHAPTER X