id tenure of beauty--all the wonder that
Mother Earth has given her.... One after another the lesser voices have
told her that it must be, but she does not obey--and then the Master
comes down.

It is one of the most glowing passages in all the literature of tone.
The _chelas_ have spoken and have not availed. Now the _Guru_ speaks.
Out of vastness and leisure, out of spaciousness of soul and wisdom, out
of the deeps and heights of compassion, the _Guru_ speaks--and suddenly
the woman's soul turns to him listening. That miracle of listening is
expressed in the treble--a low light rippling receptivity. It is like a
cup held forth--or palms held upward. The _Guru_ speaks. His will is
done.

And that is what I thought of, when the Dakotan said that the Lake was
listening. It was listening to the South Wind.... That night we talked
of Ireland. It may have been the fairies that the little girl always
brings; or it may have been that a regiment of Irish troops had just
been slaughtered in a cause that had far less significance to Ireland
than our child talk by the fire; or it may have been the South Wind that
brought us closer to the fairy Isle, for it is the Irish peasants who
say to a loved guest at parting:

"May you meet the South Wind."

"... There isn't really an Ireland any more--just a few old men and a
few old, haunting mothers. Ireland is here in America, and the last and
stiffest of her young blood is afield for England. Her sons have always
taken the field--that is their way--and the mothers have brought in more
sons born of sorrow--magic-eyed sons from the wombs of sorrow. Elder
brothers afield--fathers gone down overseas--only the fairies left by
the hearth for the younger sons to play with.... So they have sung
strange songs and seen strange lights and moved in rhythms unknown to
many men. It is these younger sons who are Ireland now. Not a place, but
a passion; not a country, but a romance.... They are in the love stories
of the world, and they are always looking for their old companions, the
fairies. They find the fairies in the foreign woodlands; they bring the
fairies to the new countries. They are in the songs that hush the heart;
they are in the mysticism that is moving the sodden world. Because they
played with fairies, they were taught to look past and beyond the flesh
of faces--past metals and meals and miles. Of the reds and greys and
moving golds which they see, the soul of the world loves to lis