248 STRAY- AW AYS 



The peasants are treated with simpUcity; their 

 language is not devoid of dignity, even sometimes of 

 poetry; tlieir characters, with the inevitable excep- 

 tion of that of the heroine, are more truly felt. But 

 it is impossible to believe that Anne Chute, Kyrle 

 Daly, Hardress Cregan, can ever have drawn the breath 

 of life. Young Mr. Hardress Cregan discusses with 

 his college friend, young Mr. Kyrle Daly, " the polite 

 world," and declares that — 



" the customs of society appeared to wear a strange- 

 ness in my sight that made me a perfect and com- 

 petent judge of their value. Their hollowness 

 disquieted, and their insipidity provoked me. I 

 could not join with any ease in the solemn folly of 

 bows and becks and wreathed smiles that can be put 

 on or off at pleasure." 



To which young Mr. Kyrle Daly replies — 



" My dear Hardress, if you were never to admit 

 of ceremony as the deputy of natural and real feeling, 

 what would become of the whole social system ? 

 How soon the mighty vessel would become a wreck ! 

 How silent would be the rich man's banquet ! How 

 solitary the great man's chambers ! How few would 

 bow before the Throne ! How lonely and how desolate 

 would be the temples of religion ! " 



" You are the more bitter satirist of the two ! " 

 says Hardress ; which, in view of his own efforts, is a 

 handsome acknowledgment. It was the convention of 

 Griffin's period that the higher the birth the taller 

 the talk ; and to Eily O'Connor, in virtue of her exalted 

 position as heroine, is permitted a similar resplend- 

 ency of phrase. Eily, the peasant girl, runaway 

 daughter of a ropemaker, overwhelmed by her own 

 wrongdoings, but far from silenced by remorse, 

 exclaims — 



