power on the Irish mind.  Travel in an Irish-speaking district and hail one of its old people in English, and you get in response a dull “Good-day, Sir.”  Salute him in Irish and you touch a secret spring.  The dull eyes light up, the face is all animation, the body alert, and for a dull “good-day,” you get warm benedictions, lively sallies, and after you, as you pass on your road, a flood of rich and racy Irish comes pouring down the wind.  That is the secret power of the language.  It makes the old men proud of their youth and gives to the young quickened faculties, an awakened imagination and a world to conquer.  This is no exaggeration.  It is not always obvious, because we do not touch the secret spring nor wander near the magic.  But the truth is there to find for him who cares to search.  You discover behind the dullness of a provincial town a bright centre of interest, and when you study the circle you know that here is some wonderful thing:  priests, doctors, lawyers, teachers, tradesmen, clerks—­all drawn together, young and old, both sexes, all enthusiasts.  Sometimes a priest is teaching a smith, sometimes the smith is teaching the priest:  for a moment at least we have unconsciously levelled barriers and there is jubilation in the natural life re-born.  Out of that quickened life and consciousness rises a vivid imagination with a rush of thought and a power of expression that gives the nation a new literature.  That is the justification of the language.  It awakens and draws to expression minds that would otherwise be blank.  It is not that the revelation of Davis is of less value than we think, but that through the medium of Irish other revelations will be won that would otherwise be lost.  Again, in subtle ways we cannot wholly understand, it gives the Irish mind a defence against every other mind, taking in comradeship whatever good the others have to offer, while retaining its own power and place.  The Irish mind can do itself justice only in Irish.  But still some ardent and faithful spirits broke through every difficulty of time and circumstance and found expression in English, and we have the treasures of Davis, Mitchel, and Mangan; yet, the majority remained cold, and now, to quicken the mass, we turn to the old language.  But this is not to decry what was won in other fields.  In the widening future that beckons to us, we shall, if anything, give greater praise to these good fighters and enthusiasts, who in darker years, even with the language of the enemy, resisted his march and held the gap for Ireland.

III