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Chapter XXIX. Aunt David's garden.
'O wind, O mighty, melancholy wind,
Blow through me, blow!
Thou blowest forgotten things into my mind
From long ago.'
John Todhunter.
No one ever had a better opportunity than we, of breathing in, so
far as a stranger and a foreigner may, the old Celtic atmosphere,
and of reliving the misty years of legend before the dawn of
history; when
'Long, long ago, beyond the space
Of twice two hundred years,
In Erin old there lived a race
Taller than Roman spears.'
Mr. Colquhoun is one of the best Gaelic scholars in Ireland, and Dr.
Gerald, though not his equal in knowledge of the language, has 'the
full of a sack of stories' in his head. According to the Book of
Leinster, a professional story-teller was required to know seven
times fifty tales, and I believe the doctor could easily pass this
test. It is not easy to make a good translation from Irish to
English, for they tell us there are no two Aryan languages more
opposed to each other in spirit and idiom. We have heard little of
the marvellous old tongue until now, but we are reading it a bit
under the tutelage of these two inspiring masters, and I fancy it
has helped me as much in my understanding of Ireland as my tedious
and perplexing worriments over political problems.
After all, how can we know anything of a nation's present or future
without some attempt to revivify its past? Just as, without some
slender knowledge of its former culture, we must be for ever
ignorant of its inherited powers and aptitudes.
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