NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 16 May 1918, Page 26

NOTES

Some Irish Writers Among the older writers whom only the real lovers of literature read at all nowadays there are a few Irish writers who deserve to be brought before the public which does not deserve to be told about them. Goldsmith, Sheridan, Moore we all know as a matter of course, for not to know them is a confession of ignorance of English literature. But how many readers of the Tablet have read The Collegians, by Gerald Griffin, or Miss Edgeworth’s tales? Probably at the present time the number of people of the younger generation who have read Lover and Lever is extremely small. And what about John Mitchel’s Jail Journal, Carleton’s Valentine Mr( ’lnfchi/, and the immortal orations of Burke and of Grattan? What indeed! Yet these will all live when the favorites of the moment are forgotten. The Dufferins Lady Dufferin was the eldest of three sisters famous for their wit and beauty. The second was Lady Somerset and the youngest Mrs. Norton. The genius of the Sheridans, for they were granddaughters of that Sheridan who “wrote the best comedy, the best opera, the best farce, and made the best speech in the House of Commons,” descended to the ladies, especially to the eldest, to whom we owe two dear old Irish songs that will never be forgotten; one is Dublin Bay and, the other that tender, beautiful, human plaint, 1 Am Sitting on the Stile. The last verse has often been slightly changed by Irish exiles to read as follows:

I am bidding"you a long farewell, Dear Ireland, kind and true, But I’ll not forget you darling In the land I’m going to. They say there’s bread and work for all And shines always there. But I’ll not forget old Ireland Were it fifty times as fair.

Her son, Lord Dufferin, was' also a true Sheridan. One little book of his reveals that fact. In Letters From High Latitudes we have a piece of literature which is a monument to the splendid heart of this Irishman whose love for his mother was one of the most beautiful things in a fine life. He was her pride and her joy, and right well did he repay, her love by his filial devotion. The letters are love-letters love letters of a son to a good motherand they are

well worth reading for the sake of their characteristic Sheridan wit and of their literary ■■■. quality. The account of the Latin speech at the Governor’s banquet at Reykjavik is a real gem. The Brontes V Charlotte, Emily, and Jane Bronte were the children of Patrick Bronte, or Bounty, who was a native of Emsdale, County Down, Ireland. So that although the girls were born in England we can claim them as children of the Greater Ireland. They were all geniuses. While Charlotte was writing The Professor, Emily and Anne were busy on W uthering Heights and Agnes Grey within the walls of the Haworth parsonage. Charlotte’s Jane Pyre is the best known of the novels written by the Brontes, but all their works are notable contributions to English literature. They display a power and an intensity that is unparalleled in English writers, ay,d the unerring choice of words that marks the style of the novels has been often noticed. There are writers of our time who rank the works of the sisters among their favorite books. If we remember rightly Father Benson was among the Bronte enthusiasts too. Charlotte and Emily wrote many poems, and if Charlotte does not rank high as a poet her sister has written some things that have had an undeniable influence on English verse of a later da}\ Mr. Henley’s wonderful poem, hi vie fas, owes its inspiration to some verses written by Emily Bronte, of which we quote a few here :

No' coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's troubled sphere: I see Heaven’s glories shine, And faith shines equal arming me from fear. “ The Middle Years ” Hus is a book by Katharine Tynan which those who appreciated her Twent y-I'ive ear* will read with pleasure. It is full of interesting reminiscences and good stories about people who are well known in the world of letters. Only to mention a few of the celebrities of whom she writes so charmingly, there are Willie Yeats, A.E., George Wyndham, “Fiona Macleod,” Mrs. Meyuell, and Francis Thompson. The record of their sayings and doings and writings makes pleasant reading, infinitely better in our opinion than any of her novels. In this book and also in her Twenty-Five Year one may be struck by a certain note of egotism. At any rate her own writings and the opinion of others about them are not forgotten by any means. Katharine Tynan writes well, "but it is doubtful if she deserves all the encomiums she quotes about herself. There are too many sentences in her books that have to be read more than once before they can be translated. Trifles make perfection and they also mar it. When she tells us that a Chalet in France was called Qui si Sano,’’ unless wq, are prepared to put the blame on the. printer we cannot agree with her: it would be either Qui mi Sano, or else Qui si Sana. Again she speaks of ram aver, which only goes half-way towards giving us the plural of ram avis. Indeed she more than hints that her prose is by way of keeping the pot boiling and that her poetry is the work of her heart. Father Tom Doyle Casually she mentions as a type of the Irish priest who ruled his people with the sternness and the love of a Roman father an old Wexford priest who is now with the angels. She is right in thinking that he did great things for his flock, but she has little idea of how much he did not only for his flock but for Ireland. To his efforts it was due that Gavan Duffy was elected for New Ross in spite of the opposition of a parish priest and the local friars and a host of citizens who were bound to the ruling tyrant. The work done by Father Tom during his stormy days of the “Eighties” on behalf of the Irish farmers had no. small influence on the subsequent beneficial land legislation. In one

case the stout old sagart' prepared for death twelve men - to defend a home against the evictors, For a long summer day they kept the bailiffs and police at bay, and when at last the Riot Act was read and orders given to the police to load the parish priest stepped forward and called the men out. They walked out laughing as if they were coming out of a circus. One of them told us after that death had xfo terrors for any of them, that day, and that they would have remained in the house while it stood or while they lived: “Divil ever we’ll be as well prepared again,” he said with a smile. -

Those Who Never Go Home She has a .touching page about the people who never go home. When in France on a holiday she joyed her rest and recreation and also enjoyed the thought of going home again when it was over. In that coinfection she writes of those who may be seen lingering about little towns on the Channel looking wistfully across at the distant shore which for some reason or other they shall not visit again. Most prominent among that class are the vulture-like creatures who hang over the gaming tables and who probably left their country for its good. Rut there are others. There is a delightful sketch of one couple—a simple English squire who became involved in some wild-cat scheme ,in which his own money and that of others went up the spout, and his Irish wife, who, now past the middle way of life, had still in her heart the courage and the unfailing gaiety of the wild Irish girl who had been the life of an Irish home in days when such an ending could never have been foreseen. One touch paints her for us: she had still some splendid old jewelry that in its . barbaric magnificence made new trinkets seem very cheap, and if anyone of her friends praised a ring or a brooch she was quite unhappy if they refused to take it as a gift. How many Irishmen and women have there been who left Ireland never to go home ! For us the type of them all is Hugh O’Neill. Many a day when we climbed up to the little' church of bt. Fietro di Montorio where he is buried we thought of the pathetic figure of the old Irish warrior, broken with years and with campaigns and almost blind, wandering through the streets of Rome, with his heart to the last set on pleading for aid for the home of us all. And on another hill that looks down, not on Rome but on Florence, we have lingered by the tomb of an older Irishman, St. Donatus, whose name is remembered in Fiesole to-day. The one is the tine type of the Wild Geese who carried afar the swords that they had drawn for Ireland ; the other, of the wonderful ancient Irish missionaries who brought over the seas the sacred fire that Patrick kindled at Tara.