Nor does this ideal of strenuous and capable work exclude either the strenuous and capable talk of Martin Ross's Galway household or anything else that was excellent in the old way. Certainly the most laborious and the most prosperous peasant household that I have ever known (and for many months I was part of it) was the most thoroughly and traditionally Irish, except that it was removed by one generation from Gaelic speech. But the whole cast of mind was Gaelic, remote as the poles from that "newer Ireland" which is in revolt against all tradition of authority—and, if they only knew it, against all Irish tradition. Miss Somerville thinks, as a page in her book shows, that the newer Ireland has lost the endearing courtesy which is imposed by the genius of the Gaelic tongue, and is for that matter to be found in every line of Pearse's essays. We can educate back to that without any detriment; we can be as efficient and as courteous as the Japanese. Another thing is gone. Ireland of yesterday, even in its poverty, was a merry country; to-day, even in its prosperity, it is full of bitter, mirthless rancour and hate. It will be a great thing if we can help to preserve for Ireland the exquisite benediction which a beggar woman in Skibbereen laid upon Martin Ross: "Sure, ye're always laughing! That ye may laugh in the sight of the glory of Heaven."
1918.
FOOTNOTE
[1] "The Story of a Success." By P. H. Pearse. Being a Record of St. Erda's College, September, 1908, to Easter, 1916. Edited by Desmond Ryan, B.A. Maunsel & Co.