n of production other than his own, so he is obstructed by these
dealers in a general vision of the final markets for his produce. His
reading is limited to the local papers, and these, following the example
of the modern press, carefully eliminate serious thought as likely to
deprive them of readers. But Patrick, for all his economic backwardness,
has a soul. The culture of the Gaelic poets and story-tellers, while
not often actually remembered, still lingers like a fragrance about his
mind. He lives and moves and has his being in the loveliest nature, the
skies over him ever cloudy like an opal; and the mountains flow
across his horizon in wave on wave of amethyst and pearl. He has the
unconscious depth of character of all who live and labor much in the
open air, in constant fellowship with the great companions--with the
earth and the sky and the fire in the sky. We ponder over Patrick, his
race and his country, brooding whether there is the seed of a Pericles
in Patrick's loins. Could we carve an Attica out of Ireland?

Before Patrick can become the father of a Pericles, before Ireland can
become an Attica, Patrick must be led out of his economic cave: his low
cunning in barter must be expanded into a knowledge of economic law--his
fanatical concentration on his family--begotten by the isolation and
individualism of his life--be sublimed into national affections; his
unconscious depths be sounded, his feeling for beauty be awakened by
contact with some of the great literature of the world. His mind is
virgin soil, and we may hope that, like all virgin soil, it will
be immensely fruitful when it is cultivated. How does the policy of
co-working make Patrick pass away from his old self? We can imagine him
as a member of a committee getting hints of a strange doctrine called
science from his creamery manager. He hears about bacteria, and these
dark invisibles replace, as the cause of bad butter-making, the wicked
fairies of his childhood. Watching this manager of his society he learns
a new respect for the man of special or expert knowledge. Discussing the
business of his association with other members he becomes something of a
practical economist. He knows now where his produce goes. He learns that
he has to compete with Americans, Europeans, and Colonials--indeed
with the farmers of the world, hitherto concealed from his view by a
mountainous mass of middle-men. He begins to be interested in these
countries and reads ab