XXXVIII 



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FROM the rich plains of Meath to the barren lands of 

 Galway, it is a far cry and an unforgettable journey. The 

 country grows more and more desolate, and grand in 

 desolation, as one approaches the Atlantic. There was 

 an orange sunset that evening, over an illimitable stretch 

 of bog, a vision of savage, haunting beauty that went with 

 us into the darkness of the fast closing day like a strain of 

 wild music. 



Ireland has always been as a living creature to her children. 

 She has taken, in their fanciful minds, a distinct personality. 

 To get such a glimpse of her as that, is to understand the 

 passionate ardour of fealty which she has had the power 

 to inspire/ to understand how she has come to be 

 "Kathleen na Hoolihan/' and "My dark Rosaleen/' to 

 those poet hearts. We were speeding now to that very 

 corner of land from which her younger lovers have chiefly 

 sprung. 



It was pitch dark when we alighted at a town which had 

 once been large and prosperous and was now forlornly 

 sunk in decay / mute witness, like so many others, to that 

 act of tyranny blunder and crimethe effects of which 

 England can never wipe away. 



Our kind friends had ordered " a carriage from the hotel " 

 to meet us. We had a long cross-country drive before us. 

 Looking doubtfully by the light of the station lamp at the 

 two emaciated animals that were to draw us, we wondered, 

 in our tired brains, if two bad horses are not worse than 

 one. It had begun to drizzle rain, a fine soft rain that is 

 like a caress in the air. 

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