ers nothing. The
Russian Empire, which covers half Europe, and stretches over the Ural
Mountains to the Pacific, would weigh light as a feather in the balance
if we compare its services to humanity with those of the little State of
Attica, which was no larger than Tipperary. Every State which has come
to command the admiration of the world has had clearly conceived ideals
which it realized before it went the way which all empires, even the
greatest, must go; becoming finally a legend, a fable, or a symbol. We
have to lay down the foundations of a new social order in Ireland, and,
if the possibilities of it are realized, our thousand years of sorrow
and darkness may be followed by as long a cycle of happy effort and
ever-growing prosperity. We shall want all these plans whether we
are ruled from Westminster or College Green. Without an imaginative
conception of what kind of civilization we wish to create, the best
government from either quarter will never avail to lift us beyond
national mediocrity. I write for those who have joined the ranks of the
co-operators without perhaps realizing all that the movement meant, or
all that it tended to. Because we hold in our hearts and keep holy there
the vision of a great future, I have fought passionately for the entire
freedom of our movement from external control, lest the meddling of
politicians or official persons without any inspiration should deflect,
for some petty purpose or official gratification, the strength of that
current which was flowing and gathering strength unto the realization
of great ideals. Every country has its proportion of little souls which
could find ample room on a threepenny bit, and be majestically housed in
a thimble, who follow out some little minute practice in an ecstasy of
self-satisfaction, seeking some little job which is the El Dorado of
their desires as if there were naught else, as if humanity were not
going from the Great Deep to the Great Deep of Deity, with wind and
water, fire and earth, stars and sun, lordly companions for it on its
path to a divine destiny. We have our share of these in Ireland in high
and low places, but I do not write for them. This essay is for those
who are working at laying deep the foundations of a new social order, to
hearten them with some thought of what their labor may bring to Ireland.
I welcome to this work the United Irishwomen. As one of their poetesses
has said in a beautiful song, the services of women t