I forgot to tell you that I arrived late—and of course at Athenry only—some 14 miles from here. I had to wait some time till a car could be got—and what a drive I had! The man said that “Plaze God, he would have me at Tull-lyra before the gintry had given me up entoirely”—and he was as good as his word! The night was dark, and the roads near Athenry awful after the recent gale and rains—and it was no joke to hold on to the car. Whenever we came to a particularly bad bit (and I declared afterwards that he took some of the stone dykes at a leap) he cried—“Now thin yer honour, whin I cry Whiroo! you hould on an’ trust to God”—and then came his wild Whiroo! and the horse seemed to spring from the car, and the jarvey and I to be flying alongside, and my rope-bound luggage to be kicking against the stars—and then we came down with a thud, and when I had a gasp of refound breath I asked if the road was as smooth and easy all the way, whereat my friend laughed genially and said “Be aisy at that now—shure we’re coming to the bad bit soon!” ...
Not far from here is a fairy-doctor, I am going to see him some day. It is strange that when one day Lady Gregory took one of Russell’s mystical drawings (I think of the Mōr Reega) and showed it to an old woman, she at once exclaimed that that was the “photograph” of the fairy queen she had often seen, only that the strange girdle of fan-flame was round her waist and not on her head as in the drawing. An old man here also has often met “the secret people,” and when asked to describe one strange “fairy lord” he has encountered more than once, it was so like G. R’s drawing that that was shown him among several others, and he at once picked it out!
It is a haunted land.
In haste (and hunger),
Wilf.
P. S. I have been thinking much over my long-projected consecutive work (i. e. as W. S.)—in five sequel books—on the drama of life as seen in the evolution of the dreams of youth—begun, indeed, over ten years ago in Paris—but presciently foregone till ten maturing years should pass.
But now the time has come when I may, and should, and indeed, now, must, write this Epic of Youth. That will be its general collective name—and it will interest you to know the now definitely fixt names of these five (and all very long) books; each to be distinct and complete in itself, yet all sequently connected: and organic and in the true sense dramatic evolution of some seven central types of men and women from youth to maturity and climax, along the high and low, levels.
Name: The Epic of Youth.
I. The Hunters of Wisdom.
II. The Tyranny of Dreams.
III. The Star of Fortune.
IV. The Daughters of Vengeance.
V. The Iron Gates.
This will take five years to do—so it is a big task to set, before the end of 1902!—especially as I have other work to do, and F. M.’s, herself as ambitious. But method, and maturer power and thought, can accomplish with far less nervous output, what otherwise was impossible, and only at a killing or at least perilous strain.
So wish me well!