h of my "Celtic Twilight" is but her
daily speech.

My uncle had the respect of the common people as few Sligo men have had
it; he would have thought a stronger emotion an intrusion on his privacy.
He gave to all men the respect due to their station or their worth with an
added measure of ceremony, and kept among his workmen a discipline that
had about it something of a regiment or a ship, knowing nothing of any but
personal authority. If a carter, let us say, was in fault, he would not
dismiss him, but send for him and take his whip away and hang it upon the
wall; and having reduced the offender, as it were, to the ranks for
certain months, would restore him to his post and his whip. This man of
diligence and of method, who had no enterprise but in contemplation, and
claimed that his wealth, considerable for Ireland, came from a brother's
or partner's talent, was the confidant of my boyish freaks and reveries.
When I said to him, echoing some book I had read, that one never knew a
countryside till one knew it at night, (though nothing would have kept him
from his bed a moment beyond the hour) he was pleased; for he loved
natural things and had learnt two cries of the lapwing, one that drew them
to where he stood and one that made them fly away. And he approved, and
arranged my meals conveniently, when I told him I was going to walk round
Lough Gill and sleep in a wood. I did not tell him all my object, for I
was nursing a new ambition. My father had read to me some passage out of
"Walden," and I planned to live some day in a cottage on a little island
called Innisfree, and Innisfree was opposite Slish Wood where I meant to
sleep.

I thought that having conquered bodily desire and the inclination of my
mind towards women and love, I should live, as Thoreau lived, seeking
wisdom. There was a story in the county history of a tree that had once
grown upon that island guarded by some terrible monster and borne the food
of the gods. A young girl pined for the fruit and told her lover to kill
the monster and carry the fruit away. He did as he had been told, but
tasted the fruit; and when he reached the mainland where she had waited
for him, was dying of its powerful virtue. And from sorrow and from
remorse she too ate of it and died. I do not remember whether I chose the
island because of its beauty or for the story's sake, but I was twenty-two
or three before I gave up the dream.

I set out from Sligo about six in the even