ld was the effacement of whole pantheons of divinities, and
yet it is true that since the thoughts of men were turned from the old
ideals our literature has been filled with a less noble life. I think
a due may be found in the withdrawal of thought from nature, the great
mother who, is the giver of all life, and without whose life ideals
become inoperative and listless dwellers in the heart. The eyes of the
ancient Gael were fixed in wonder on the rocks and hills, and the waste
places of the earth were piled with phantasmal palaces where the Sidhe
sat on their thrones. Everywhere there was life, and as they saw so
they felt. To conceive of nature in any way, as beautiful and living, as
friendly or hostile, is to receive from her in like measure out of
her fullness. With whatever face we approach the mirror a similar face
approaches ours. "Let him approach it, saying, 'This is the Mighty,'
he becomes mighty," says an ancient scripture, teaching us that as
our aspiration is so will be our inspiration and power. Out of this
comradeship with earth there came a commingling of natures, and we do
not know when we read who are the Sidhe and who are human. The great
energies are all in the heroes. They bound to themselves, like the
Talkend, the strength of the fire, the brightness of the sun, and the
swiftness of the wind. They seem truly the earth-born. The waves respond
to their deeds; the elemental creatures respond and there are clashing
echoes and allies innumerable, and armies in the air continuing their
battles illimitably beyond: a proud race, who felt with bursting heart
the heavens were watching them, who defied their gods and exiled them
to have free play for their own deeds. A very different humanity indeed
from those who have come to walk the earth with humility, who are afraid
of heaven and its rulers, and whose dread is the greatest of all sins,
for in it is a denial of their own divinity. Surely the sight heroes is
more welcome to the King, in whose heaven are sworded seraphim, than the
bowed knees and the spirits who make themselves as worms in His sight.
In the symbolic expression of our spiritual life the eagle has become
a dove brooding peace. Oh, that it might rebecome the eagle and take to
the upper airs!

A generosity and greatness of spirit are in the heroes of the Red
Branch, and out of their strength grows a bloom of beauty never fully
revealed until Lady Gregory compiled these tales. As we read our
eye