LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17711, 23 August 1919, Page 2

LITERATURE.

AN IRISH STEW.*

THE SIMILE OF A SEETHING POT.

Br Constant Reader.

"We are a soctiling pot—w®, tho Irish people. Just now it is the scum which is coming malodorously to the surface, and perhaps scalding your hands and feet. Yet within the pot there is good stuff." So wroto Canon Hannay, better known as "George A. Birmingham," in an early novel published 15 years ago, adding at the end of tho book: "You will not bo angry with mo for my parable of tho seething pot. It is not mine, you know, but the prophet's. I havo only fitted it to Ireland—our dear Ireland, which we love best of all things, in spites-Would wo love Ireland so well as we do if we had_ not got to love her in spite of her breaking our hearts?" During the years which have elapsed since these words were penned, Ireland has ec-cthed very confusedly, carrying out consistently the exhortation addressed by tlxs novelist to his countrymen. "Let us do our little part m this dear Ireland of ours to stir men into tho activities of thousrht and ambition. If we get our toes burnt and our fingers grimy,_ let us put up with it bravely. If there is a nasty smell, we shall remember that ■■.there is good food in the caldron." In that much lauded and highly commended collection of memories, anecdotes, and conclusions, "Tho End of a Chapter," Mr Shane Leslie says in his chapter on "Ireland and tho Irish." "The secret of English misrule is that only Irishmen can understand the Irish." Ho prefaces this dictum by the following delightful paragraph :— England would not be what she is without Ireland. For good or for lad, for sunshine or for rain (chiefly the latter) England and Ireland eeem doomed to cross-entanglement, with their present continually marred for the future by rach other's past.

Mr Shano Leslio is probably one of the safest living literary guides in tho maze of the Irish question. Coming of an old Irish family, tracing- his desoent back to John Leslie, Bishop of Raphoe, he was born half-way through the eighties. He was brought up at Glaslough, in the oountv of Monaghan in Ireland, on tho townland of _ Castle Lesly. Educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, Mr Shane Leslie contested Derry City as a Nationalist in 1910. When the war broke out he and his brother, Norman, enlisted and crossed to France; to-day Captain Normaji Leslie lies buried at Armentieres, "between the g<uns of two armies" ; while Shano Leslie, "invalided in hospital," began to make notes for the volume first published in August, 1916. under the title "The End of a Chapter."

Not satisfied with merely setting down tho remembrances of having shared with his friends and contemporaries " tho fortunes and misfortunes of being born at the end of chapter in history," Mr Shane Leslie has since given attention to the work of reconstruction, and especially in regard to the two countries with which he is closcly connected and in whose future he is intimately interested — viz., Ireland and Amorioa. Accordingly he has just published a second volume bearing the title " The Irish Issue in Its American Aspect: a Contribution to the Settlement of Anglo-AmoW-can Relations During and After the Great War." This book, written before the days of the armistice, carries the following epilogue:—

So winds the woof. So sags the 'skein. If Ireland cannot be separated from England, she cannot be isolated from America. Out of the American Revolution and Civil War was bred an Irish-American issue, which Mitchell and Pamell did no more than shape at the time. Sinn Fein has since caused convulsion to the Irish cause, but not collapse. It abides decision. No; great American has. felt' otherwise than Motley when he wrote 50, years ago: "Justice, Truth, and Faith are immutable. Imagine that Ireland had been always dealt with since the davs of the Plantagenets m accordance with those principles. ■ Would there have been an Irish Question ■ at this moment, striking down to the foundations of tho Empire?" Few great Englishmen but feel the same to-day. America will not pass over tho Truth. England cannot allow her own Faith to be questioned, and Ireland can only do that Justice to the allied cause which is. not outside of Justice to

herself. • If it be true that only Irishmen can understand the Irish, may it not be possible that English understanding of tho Irish question may ultimately come by medium of the Irish-American? In that case this book on the Irish Issue in its American Aspect may possess an important present-day value. Mr Shane Leslie's latest volume has a historical basis, as may be gleaned from a synopsis of its chapter headings. Those of the first part are: America's Family Ghost, The Centenary of John Mitchell, The Memory of Parnell, The Treason of the Redmonds, The Ethics of Sinn Fein, The Presidency of Pearse, The Killing of Kettle, and, Carson and Casement. The second part consists of only two chapters: The Winning of tho United States and Irish America Durine the War. With tho epilogue already quoted, these complete the volume.

The opening chapter gives the keynote of the book. Mr Leslie starts with the assertion, "Ireland is tho spectre of the British Empire." To this he adds, "If America has a ghost, it is Ireland," the obvious de duction being that a haunted America may be constrained to lay the spectre, and by delivering England, set Ireland free. "Like the Janus of the Atlantic," writes Mr Leslie, "Ireland is two-faced. Towards England she ever looks with anguish and bitterness, towards the United States with tearful hope nad wistful affection. For in the nineteenth century America was to Ireland what France was' in the eighteenth, la gTande nation 1 The strongest and choicest went into their service, military in the case of France, industrial in that of America. The canals and then the railways of America were created by Irish labour. Tho industrial connection found apotheosis in the names of M'Cormick and Fori"

"It is curious, indeed," remarks Mr Leslie, "bow Irish action and reaction has run like an uncanny spirit through the woof of American history. . . . American independence had as groat an effect on Ireland as the Russian revolution has had on the modern world at large." Following a brilliant but _ brief outline of Irish and American action and reaction, Mr Leslie continues:—

Henceforth the ghost of Ireland sat at tho American hearth, to rise and wail like a watchdog at any approach of the hereditary enemy, whether friendly or hostile. In the uttermost psxt3 of tho sea Ireland has risen again aitd again to baffle and perplex England. She has stood not merely geographically but politically between England and America. In tho •world's great changing time, when alliances arc shuffled like cards and the traditional emotions of peoples are thrown into new shapes, has not a time com© for the reconsideration of the relations affecting Ireland, England, and America? As . long ago as 1852 Seward declared: "Tho people of Ireland are affiliated to us as we are to the people of Great Britain. Surely there can be no offence given by a younger member in offering mediation betwen the elder brethren of the same family upon a point of difference between them." Has not the time come for England to cry peace to her pursuing avenger? Is it not good for all that tho unforgiving ghost that haunts the common purpose of England and America should be laid? Does not tho exorcism and the magical influence which can lead to Ireland's healing, England's pardon, and America's comfort lio in the stupendous sentences by which America, made known to the world tho unfurling of her flag over Armageddon? Is none great enough to banish tho Banshee of the Atlantio? The chapter on the centenary of John Mitchell gives the opportunity to Mr Leslie to quote the testament Mitchell left with Ireland, after his escape from ponalism. In tho light of to-day these reveal him not only as patriot and visionary, but as a prophet as well. Mitchell's words merit pondering at- present time. " Already," He wrote, " the two long-slumboring nations have recognised each other and soon where their help lies. Wliy may not- an alliance bo then and there struck, strictly defining our common purposes and pointing out where our roads diverge and at what point tho British and Irish nations aro to wend their several roads, parting in pence, if it be possible, and fulfil their own destinies in the coming ages." " The Treason of tho Redmonds " makes material for a very firre chapter csrpla'Tnng and enunciating the present attitude of Ire-

land and the Irish against the Rednjonda. Tho closing words of that chapter are characteristic:— Those who servo Ireland have found that her service loads to disappointment and oven to death, but that if tho gervioo of Ireland is bitterer than death it is also sweeter than lifo. 'Hbe Iriah themselves will always bo a good excuse for God'a goodness to their dead leaders. So it fares with the Rodmonds. One has died as a soldier and the other shall ono day live as a statesman with Vonizclos and Liobknecht, the prototypes of a new era when leaders shall have learnt to sacrifice themselves rather than pass over tho infringement of tho higher law. Ireland has wished to forget John Redmond. The day will como when the Irish will And his name as great a slogan upon their lips as " Remember Limerick," the city of the broken treaty. It will bo the English 'who will wish to him then, for tho historians to como will remember him, _ whatever the poets may utter of malediction, against him to-day. There is something almost prophetic in tho way in which Mr Leslie concludes his chapter on '"Hie Ethics of Sinn Fein." Following an analysis and elaboration of the meaning and tho motive of the phrase, comes the exclamation: " Sinn Fein is a fever, against which there is no appeal, terrorising and exalting the emotions of a whole generation with something between the psychology of a race riot and of a rehgious revival. Only the judicious and the middle-aged and the uninspired can afford to stand aside. The riff-raff and tho rowdy of Ireland are of it, but so also ar© r arK * khe righteous of soul, 6ome of the best that a nation can contain, lime only can show whether the sediment from the troubled waters will virald the base of a nation or a faction only. Even so the faction of to-day is the nation of to-morrow. .

Students of the Irish problem who are eager to get to the bottom of things and to discover a remedy for a troublous situation will find help and inspiration in Mr Leslies chapter on "The Presidency of 1 earse. The average English view is that Pearse was a rebel and the leader of rebels., who nchly deserved his fate. The Irish view is that Pearse was a hero and a martyr, and Mr Leslie assorts that "for a century ho will .be the mvConal hero ol Ireland. To the unb'*ssed onlooker I atnek Pearse is an idealist, a dreamer who dreamed of giving his life for Ireland and who, unlike the majority of dreamers, lived to see his dream come true. As poet, story writer, and sohoolmaster Pmrse represented the best and noblest of Ireland s life. Mr Leslie sums up his character splendidly when he says: — Pearse was a man of a single dream, of a single life, of a single heart, of a ?u nS i. a - ', Ee became through a single decision and famous in a single week. Simplicity and straightforwardness was his policy in the face of tact, and the assaults of absurdity. He always made the extreme course tho short cut to his soul's desires. He did not mind being singular, even to the extent of maJnng Irish theoretically his single speech. There was no turning or influencing him once he had chosen his path. He was as poetic, as revolutionary, and as wayward as Shelley, but with a sombr e touch that took the place of passion in his life. What atheism was to Sliellev's youthful enthusiasm, Fenianism was "to Pearse. In a mind otherwise so gp.nt.le, it was the one terrible and besettintr strain.

The theme of death, disaster, and suffering for Ireland never left his thought. Whether ho worked as a barrister or as schoolmaster, while hi 3 vocation "was religious or journalistic, lie seemed to be haunted by nn icy breath from the coming years. He was never in love except with his abstract thought of a free Ireland.

In contrast to Patrick Pearse, Mr Leslie places Tom Kettle. Both Pearse and Kettle died for Ireland, the one in Dublin and the other in France. It may be affirmed with truth that Pearse and Kettle represent the two sides of the Irish question, and that both sides must be taken into account before a right balance may be btruck. When the war came "Kettle took the point of vicrw not of the Britisher or the Sinn Feiner, but of the European. The interest of Kettle was that he was an international Nationalist, which is, as rare in Ireland as elsewhere. Much as he loved Ireland, he also appreciated Europe, and he would not willingly allow Western civilisation to be twisted from tho hinges without some protest being made by Irishmen." Although Young Ireland failed to follow him into the trenches, Tom Kettle never felt he had made a mistake. And yet his heart never left those who had followed other counsels than his. His last request before he fell in France was a plea for the release of the prisoners of the Dublin rising. Mr Leslie's eulogy of Kettle is a fine, one:— . So amid the wreckage of a world and the oarnage of a continent fell Tom Kettle. Many, when they heard that tragic news all over that Irish world on which the sun never sets, must have remembered the grief of Gavan Duffy when confronted by the death of Thomas Davis in his prime. Ireland has never ceased to be haunted by the promise, the pathos, ' and the possibility of that life and death, and now men will look back on Kettle likewise. Irishmen will think of him with his gentle brother-in-law, Sheehy Sikeffington, as two intellectuals, who, after their manner and their light, wrought and thought and died for Ireland. What boots

it if one was murdered by a British officer and the other was slain in honourable warfare by Germans ? To Ireland they are both lovable, and in Irish minds their memory shallnot fail. What though Skeffington sleeps nigh Parnell and O'Connell In holy Glasnevin, while Kettle's ashes are left in the shell-torn trenches of France. Ireland knows that they • were both men of peace, and that they both offered their lives for her. In death they were divided, but in the heart of Ireland .they are as one. There is a beautiful picture by Burne Jones of the knight who mot and yet forgave his worst enemy. As he turned aside he knelt before a wooden crucifix of the wayside, and the figure on the cross bent to lass him. Who can doubt that Kettle, who had forgiven the Eng lish, who had murdered his brother, and went to .France to "3efend the homes of Englishwomen from outrage and sudden death —that, as he passed some village Calvary, he was not suffered to pass comfortless upon his way. Mr Leslie finds hope for the ultimate' reconciliation of Irishman with Irishman in the intermingling of discordant elements quietly and almost silently proceeding. In nis chapter on " Carson and Casement" ho asks, "How long is Ireland to be forced to bandy their names as catchwords?" The answer is forthcoming in the following little bit of autobiography from "The End of a Chapter":—

Tho last chapter of Irish history has been strange. I watched it from many sides. A Nationalist candidate myself, two of my relations were returned as Unionists, a cousin entered the Home Rule Cabinet, and an uncle became an O'Brienite, or Independent member, in Cork. As an anti-climax his beautiful nieco married the Ulster leader—Carson himself.

Just as in America, the ancient differences between North and South, dating back to the Civil War, are gradually and almost imperceptibly giving: way before the advancing tide of a unified Nationalism, so it may be anticipated that Ireland is, beneath tho surface, being- welded into one people. It may also be hopefully noted that some of the strongest advocates of Ireland in the present crisis are Englishmen married to Irish wives, Messrs Austin Harrison and Clement Shorter to boot. But when all is said and done the strongest influences in favour of a permanent settlement of the Irish question are likelv to emanate from Irish-America. Under this head Mr Leslie writes:—

In conclusion, Ireland's greatest international asset has been and always -will be the feeling which Americana have for those who have become American without losing their Irish qualities. To mako the most of this, Irish opinion in America should be mobile. It should not be nailed to words and phrases containing the maximum of exasperation and the minimum of placability. It should be as capable' erf accepting the olive branch as of admtnnteriner criticism. It should be a forcq sensible of results, open to justice, fluid, amenable independent, generous, yet stern —above all unswerving in the interest of the Irish cause ns an. international, and not merely a local, question. To such a forco statesmen and diplomatists would listen—if not with agreement, at loast with attention. " Irish-America is not the blinded, brainless stratum of society that her enemies wonld h?.ve us _ believe. Eyes she hath and spoth. , Brains she hath and thiriketh. But she fjoeth her own way—which is a. thousand ways.—and her strength and influence as a force in international questions are dissipated. Few Irish writers in America kayo perceived