ter it has wrought its will it can leave monuments
that seem as everlasting a portion of nature as the rocks. The Pyramids
and the Sphinx in the sands of Egypt have seemed to humanity for
centuries as much a portion of nature as Erigal, or Benbulben, or Slieve
Gullion have seemed a portion of nature to our eyes in Ireland.

We must have some purpose or plan in building up an Irish civilization.
No artist takes up his paints and brushes and begins to work on his
canvas without a clear idea burning in his brain of what he has to do,
else were his work all smudges. Does anyone think that out of all these
little cabins and farmhouses dotting the green of Ireland there will
come harmonious effort to a common end without organization and set
purpose? The idea and plan of a great rural civilization must shine like
a burning lamp in the imagination of the youth of Ireland, or we shall
only be at cross-purposes and end in little fatuities. We are very fond
in Ireland of talking of Ireland a nation. The word "nation" has a kind
of satisfying sound, but I am afraid it is an empty word with no rich
significance to most who use it. The word "laboratory" has as fine a
sound, but only the practical scientist has a true conception of what
may take place there, what roar of strange forces, what mingling of
subtle elements, what mystery and magnificence in atomic life. The word
without the idea is like the purse without the coin, the skull without
the soul, or any other sham or empty deceit. Nations are not built up by
the repetition of words, but by the organizing of intellectual forces.
If any of my readers would like to know what kind of thought goes to
the building up of a great nation, let him read the life of Alexander
Hamilton by Oliver. To that extraordinary man the United States owe
their constitution, almost their existence. To him, far more than to
Washington, the idea, plan, shape of all that marvelous dominion owes
its origin and character. He seemed to hold in his brain, while America
was yet a group of half-barbaric settlements, the idea of what it might
become. He laid down the plans, the constitution, the foreign policy,
the trade policy, the relation of State to State, and it is only within
the last few years almost, that America has realized that she had
in Hamilton a supreme political and social intelligence, the true
fountain-head of what she has since become.

We have not half a continent to deal with, but size matt