Our new Irish poet declared he was bound "out to the storm of things,"
and we all waited with interest for his next utterance. Would he
wear the red cap as the poet of the social revolution, now long
overdue in these islands, or would he sing the Marsellaise of womanhood,
emerging in hordes from their underground kitchens to make a still
greater revolution? He did neither. He forgot all about the storm
of things, and delighted us with his story of Mary, the charwoman's
daughter, a tale of Dublin life, so, kindly, so humane, so vivid,
so wise, so witty, and so true, that it would not be exaggerating
to say that natural humanity in Ireland found its first worthy
chronicler in this tale.

We have a second volume of poetry from James Stephens, The Hill of
Vision. He has climbed a hill, indeed, but has found cross roads
there leading in many directions, and seems to be a little perplexed
whether the storm of things was his destiny after all. When one
is in a cave there is only one road which leads out, but when one
stands in the sunlight there are endless roads. We enjoy his
perplexity, for he has seated himself by his cross-roads, and has
tried many tunes on his lute, obviously in doubt which sounds sweetest
to his own ear. I am not at all in doubt as to what is best, and I
hope he will go on like Whitman, carrying "the old delicious burdens,
men and women," wherever he goes. For his references to Deity,
Plato undoubtedly would have expelled him from his Republic; and
justly so, for James Stephens treats his god very much as the
African savage treats his fetish. Now it is supplicated, and the
next minute the idol is buffeted for an unanswered prayer or a
neglected duty, and then a little later our Irish African is crooning
sweetly with his idol, arranging its domestic affairs and the marriage
of Heaven and Earth. Sometimes our poet essays the pastoral, and