and sincerity of his speech, could express the greatness of the past.
The drama in its mystical beginning was the vehicle through which
divine ideas, which are beyond the sphere even of heroic life and
passion, were expressed; and if the later Irish writers fail of
such greatness, it is not for that reason that the soul of Ireland
will depart. I can hardly believe Mr. O'Grady to be serious when
he fears that many forbidden subjects will be themes for dramatic art,
that Maeve with her many husbands will walk the stage, and the lusts
of an earlier age be revived to please the lusts of today. The
danger of art is not in its subjects, but in the attitude of the
artist's mind. The nobler influences of art arise, not because
heroes are the theme, but because of noble treatment and the intuition
which perceives the inflexible working out of great moral laws.

The abysses of human nature may well be sounded if the plummet be
dropped by a spirit from the heights. The lust which leads on to
death may be a terrible thing to contemplate, but in the event
there is consolation; and the eye of faith can see even in the
very exultation of corruption how God the Regenerator is working
His will, leading man onward to his destiny of inevitable beauty.
Mr. O'Grady in his youth had the epic imagination, and I think few
people realize how great and heroic that inspiration was; but the
net that is spread for Leviathan will not capture all the creatures
of the deep, and neither epic nor romance will manifest fully the
power of the mythical ancestors of the modern Gael who now seek
incarnation anew in the minds of their children. Men too often
forget, in this age of printed books, that literature is, after all,
only an ineffectual record of speech. The literary man has gone
into strange byways through long contemplation of books, and he
writes with elaboration what could never be spoken, and he loses