IV

But the Co-operative Movement did not absorb the whole of his energies.

He is as many-sided as William Morris was, almost as many-sided as

Leonardo da Vinci. His work on the _Irish Homestead_ would seem to

be sufficient to employ all the vitality of a healthy, active man,

but "A. E." cannot be contained within the pages of a weekly review,

and so, while writing four or five pages every week of the finest

journalism to be found in Great Britain or Ireland, he has also

produced seven remarkable books and painted many pictures, engaged in

political and economic controversy, and sat as a member of the Irish

Convention which endeavoured, in 1917, to discover a solution of the

Irish Problem. In a strange and, to me, incomprehensible book, called

"The Candle of Vision," he has wrought his mysticism to such a pitch

of practicality that he is able to offer his readers an alphabet with

which to interpret the language of the Gods! It manifests itself in

some of his pictures, where strange, luminous and brightly-coloured

creatures are seen shining in some ordinary landscape, creatures that

seemed to me, when I first saw them, akin to Red Indians. In everything

that he writes and does, there is a consciousness of some spiritual

presence, not the spiritual presence of the Christian theology, but

of the Pagan Legends. One night, in his house in Dublin, I drew the

attention of a lady to one of his pictures, a dark landscape, in the

centre of which a very brilliant and beautiful creature was dancing.

"A. E." turned to us and said, "That's the one I saw!" and I remembered

the story I had been told earlier in the evening, that he saw fairies,

that he actually took penny tram-rides from Dublin to go up into the

mountains to see the fairies! I do not remember what the lady said,

but I remember that she looked exceedingly astonished, and, indeed,

I myself felt some astonishment. If Mr. Yeats had said that he had

seen a fairy, I should have smiled indulgently and should neither

have believed that he had seen one nor that he himself believed that

he had seen one. But while I do not believe that "A. E." saw a fairy,

otherwise than in his imagination, I am certain that he believes he saw

one, not as a creature of the mind, but as one having flesh and blood.

He claims no peculiar merit for himself in seeing visions. "There is

no personal virtue in me," he writes in "The Candle of Vision," "other

than this that I followed a path all may travel but on which few do

journey." He tells his readers how they, too, if they have the wish,

may see the things which he has seen, and he gives descriptions of some

of his visions. People as incredulous as I am can very easily dispose

of "A. E.'s" visions as the fantasies of a man suffering perhaps from

inadequate nourishment--for "A. E." was careless about his meals in

those days--just as the visions of St. Theresa and St. Catherine of

Sienna may be explained by the feverishness of mind that comes to

people who are starving themselves or are suffering from neurosis. Here

is an account of one of his visions. You are to understand that it is

not a dream such as you and I have when we are asleep, but something

seen by a man who is awake at broad of day, something actual, something

that you who read this might also see if you were to follow the path on

which he has travelled:

So did I feel one warm summer day lying idly on the hillside,

not then thinking of anything but the sunlight, and how sweet it

was to drowse there, when, suddenly, I felt a fiery heart throb,

and knew it was personal and intimate, and started with every

sense dilated and intent, and turned inwards, and I heard first a

music as of bells going away, away into that wonderous underland

whither, as legend relates, the Danaan gods withdraw; and then

the heart of the hills was opened to me, and I knew there was no

hill for those who were there, and they were unconscious of the

ponderous mountain piled above the palaces of light, and the winds

were sparkling and diamond clear, yet full of color as an opal, as

they glittered through the valley, and I knew the Golden Age was

all about me, and it was we who had been blind to it but that it

had never passed away from the world.

The Golden Age is here, at this moment, and all the noble creatures who

filled it with chivalry and beauty are crowding about us. We have only

to open our eyes and we shall see!...

Once, suddenly, I found myself on some remote plain or steppe,

and heard unearthly chimes pealing passionately from I know not

what far steeples. The earth-breath streamed from the furrows

to the glowing heavens. Overhead the birds flew round and round

crying their incomprehensible cries, as if they were maddened, and

knew not where to nestle, and had dreams of some more enraptured

rest in a diviner home. I could see a ploughman lift himself from

his obscure toil and stand with lit eyes as if he too had been

fire-smitten and was caught into heaven as I was, and knew for

that moment he was a god.

It is very vague, the disbeliever feels, and there is nothing in it to

make one accept it as a vision of a thing actually seen, rather than

fancied; but there can be no doubt of the intensity with which "A. E."

believes in the actuality of it. These visions form the foundation of

his political and economic faith. He advocates co-operative enterprise

because he believes in his visions as actual happenings. In a poem,

called "Earth Breath," he says:

From the cool and dark-lipped furrows breathes a dim delight

Through the woodland's purple plumage to the diamond night.

Aureoles of joy encircle every blade of grass

Where the dew-fed creatures silent and enraptured pass.

And the restless ploughman pauses, turns, and, wondering,

Deep beneath his rustic habit finds himself a king.

This verse is obviously a poetical account of the experience he

underwent "on some remote plain or steppe," and the final couplet of it

gives the explanation of his belief in democracy. If he had no faith in

the god in man, if he were not certain that "the restless ploughman ...

deep beneath his rustic habit finds himself a king," he would probably

offer his allegiance to autocracy and believe in government by a caste;

but since he has seen visions and is convinced that there is a god in

man, he cannot be other than a democrat. All his political strivings

have been directed towards making this "a society where people will

be at harmony in their economic life," as he writes in "The National

Being," and "will readily listen to different opinions from their own,

will not turn sour faces on those who do not think as they do, but

will, by reason and sympathy, comprehend each other, and come at last,

through sympathy and affection, to a balancing of their diversities,

as in that multitudinous diversity which is the universe, powers and

dominions and elements are balanced, and are guided harmoniously by the

Shepherd of the Ages." Whether such a world, balanced in that way, can

be rightly described as a democracy is not a matter on which I offer

any opinion here, though it seems to me to be a very long way from what

the common man considers a democracy to be.

V

It is when we come to connect his visions and the beliefs he derives

from them with the actual circumstances in which we find ourselves

that we begin to be most dubious. "National ideals," he says in "The

National Being," "are the possession of a few people only." That is an

argument for aristocracy.

Yet we must spread them in wide commonalty over Ireland if we

are to create a civilisation worthy of our hopes and our ages

of struggle and sacrifice to attain the power to build. We

must spread them in wide commonalty because it is certain that

democracy will prevail in Ireland. The aristocratic classes with

traditions of government, the manufacturing classes with economic

experience, will alike be secondary in Ireland to the small

farmers and the wage-earners in the towns. We must rely on the

ideas common among our people, and on their power to discern among

their countrymen the aristocracy of character and intellect.

With the deletion of the word "Ireland" and the substitution of the

word "America," that quotation might stand just as effective for the

United States as for Ireland. Why is it certain that democracy will

prevail in Ireland? Because the small farmers and the wage-earners

in the towns will take precedence over the aristocracy and the

manufacturing classes! I do not follow that argument. I have seen

nothing in England or America or Ireland or France to convince me

that if the small farmers and the wage-earners in the towns were

authoritative they would be any more democratic than the aristocratic

or the manufacturing classes. I have seen much to make me feel certain

that they will use their authority as implacably in their own interests

as any aristocrat or manufacturer ever used or ever will use his. Mr.

G. K. Chesterton, in his book, "Irish Impressions," produces this

argument in favour of peasant proprietorship:

It may be that international Israel will launch against us out

of the East an insane simplification of the unity of Man, as

Islam once launched out of the East an insane simplification

of the unity of God. If it be so, it is where property is well

distributed that it will be well defended. The post of honor will

be with those who fight in very truth for their own land.

It is indisputable that a peasant will fight for his own land, the tiny

portion which he owns and cultivates, but will he fight for another

man's land when that man is unjustly to be bereft of it? There is

nothing meritable in a man who fights for his own goods and lands, nor

does it seem to me that a peasant will fight for his potato-patch with

any greater determination than a share holder in a railroad will fight

for the interest on his capital. There certainly is not anything more

noble or chivalrous in the peasant's desire to keep possession of his

means of livelihood than there is in that of the Liberty Bondholder.

The test of honour is, not what will you do for yourself, but what will

you do for other men? The French peasant proprietors, the Pennsylvania

Dutch, the Irish peasant proprietors may offer a guarantee of stability

to society, but the offer may carry with it obstinate reaction and

a gross disregard of the rights of those who are not possessors of

land. It will not guarantee the landless man against exploitation in

the price of food in times of war and necessity. It offers singularly

little hope that "national ideals" will be spread in wide commonalty,

if the peasants can help it. "A. E." will urge, perhaps, that while

"national ideals are the possession of a few people only," they may

be spread in wide commonalty if the "few people" will make the effort

to spread them. The soil lies ready for the seed. But what is there

in human affairs to justify any man in assuming that the mass of men

are likely to be long-suffering in idealism? Is it not a fact of human

nature that even when the multitude has been stirred to some act of

exaltation, the staying power of the multitude has not been sufficient

to maintain the exalted mood long enough to render the reactionaries

hopeless? Where are the generous ideals of 1914 now? Has not the war

that was to end war made war seem more probable? Is not the world at

this moment suffering to the point of distraction because the multitude

cannot live up to its own ideals long enough to make them practical?

"The gods departed," says "A. E.", "the half-gods also, hero and

saint after that, and we [i. e. the Irish people] have dwindled down

to a petty peasant nationality, rural and urban life alike mean in

their externals." But he does not despair. "Yet the cavalcade, for

all its tattered habiliments, has not lost spiritual dignity." And he

hopes "the incorruptible atom" in us will make us great again. Divine

optimism, but what is there in peasant society to justify it?