ray of general principles. As he is obstructed by the traders in a
general vision of production other than his own, so he is obstructed by
these dealers in a general vision of the final markets for his produce.
His reading is limited to the local papers, and these, following the
example of the modern press, carefully eliminate serious thought as
likely to deprive them of readers. But Patrick, for all his economic
backwardness, has a soul. The culture of the Gaelic poets and story-
tellers, while not often actually remembered, still lingers like a
fragrance about his mind. He lives and moves and has his being in the
loveliest nature, the skies over him ever cloudy like an opal; and the
mountains flow across his horizon in wave on wave of amethyst and pearl.
He has the unconscious depth of character of all who live and labor much
in the open air, in constant fellowship with the great companions--with
the earth and the sky and the fire in the sky. We ponder over Patrick,
his race and his country, brooding whether there is the seed of a
Pericles in Patrick's loins. Could we carve an Attica out of Ireland?

Before Patrick can become the father of a Pericles, before Ireland can
become an Attica, Patrick must be led out of his economic cave: his low
cunning in barter must be expanded into a knowledge of economic law--his
fanatical concentration on his family--begotten by the isolation and
individualism of his life--be sublimed into national affections; his
unconscious depths be sounded, his feeling for beauty be awakened by
contact with some of the great literature of the world. His mind is
virgin soil, and we may hope that, like all virgin soil, it will be
immensely fruitful when it is cultivated. How does the policy of
co-working make Patrick pass away from his old self? We can imagine him
as a member of a committee getting hints of a strange doctrine called
science from his creamery manager. He hears about bacteria, and these
dark invisibles replace, as the cause of bad butter-making, the wicked