ize all
human knowledge, but find it we well might could we first find philosophy
and a little passion.

BOOK II

IRELAND AFTER THE FALL OF PARNELL

_IRELAND AFTER THE FALL OF PARNELL_

I

A couple of years before the death of Parnell, I had wound up my
introduction to those selections from the Irish novelists with the
prophecy of an intellectual movement at the first lull in politics, and
now I wished to fulfil my prophecy. I did not put it in that way, for I
preferred to think that the sudden emotion that now came to me, the sudden
certainty that Ireland was to be like soft wax for years to come, was a
moment of supernatural insight. How could I tell, how can I tell even now?

There was a little Irish Society of young people, clerks, shop boys, and
shop girls, called "The Southwark Irish Literary Society," and it had
ceased to meet because the girls got the giggles when any member of the
Committee got up to speak. Every member of it had said all he had to say
many times over. I had given them a lecture about the falling asunder of
the human mind, as an opening flower falls asunder, and all had professed
admiration because I had made such a long speech without quotation or
narrative; and now I invited the Committee to my father's house at Bedford
Park, and there proposed a new organization, "The Irish Literary Society."
T. W. Rolleston came to that first meeting, and it was because he had much
tact, and a knowledge of the technical business of committees, that a
society was founded which was joined by every London-Irish author and
journalist. In a few months somebody had written its history, and
published that history, illustrated by our portraits, at a shilling. When
it was published I was in Dublin, founding a society there called "The
National Literary Society," and affiliating it with certain Young Ireland
Societies in country towns which seemed anxious to accept its leadership.
I had definite plans; I wanted to create an Irish Theatre; I was finishing
my _Countess Cathleen_ in its first meagre version, and thought of a
travelling company to visit our country branches; but before that there
must be a popular imaginative literature. I arranged with Mr. Fisher Unwin
and his reader, Mr Edward Garnett--a personal friend of mine--that when
our organization was complete Mr Fisher Unwin was to publish for it a
series of books at a shilling each. I told only one man of this
arrangement, for after I h