and finds in him its inspiration. O'Grady may have failed in his
appeal to the aristocracy of his own time but he may yet create an
aristocracy of character and intellect in Ireland. The political
and social writings will remain to uplift and inspire and to
remind us that the man who wrote the stories of heroes had a
bravery of his own and a wisdom of his own. I owe so much to
Standish O'Grady that I would like to leave it on record that it
was he who made me conscious and proud of my country, and recalled
my mind, that might have wandered otherwise over too wide and
vague a field of thought, to think of the earth under my feet and
the children of our common mother. There hangs in the Municipal
Gallery of Dublin the portrait of a man with brooding eyes, and
scrawled on the canvas is the subject of his bitter meditation,
"The Lost Land." I hope that O'Grady will find before he goes back
to Tir-na-noge that Ireland has found again through him what
seemed lost for ever, the law of its own being, and its memories
which go back to the beginning of the world.






THE COMING OF CUCULAIN




CHAPTER I