The author of the tales contained in this volume was one of the
brightest and most poetic spirits who have appeared in Ireland in the
last half century. It is needless to say that he was also one of the
most patriotic Irishmen of his generation--patriotic in the highest
and widest sense of that term, loving with an ardent love his country,
its people, its historic traditions, its hills and plains, its lakes
and streams, its raths and mounds. Like all men of his type, he lived
largely in the past, and his fancy revelled much in fairy scenes of
childhood and youth.
The distractions of political life, into which he entered with
characteristic enthusiasm, prevented Edmund Leamy from cultivating his
favourite field of literature with that assiduity and sustained
application necessary for the purpose of bringing out the really
great intellectual powers with which he was endowed; otherwise, he
would certainly have left to Ireland a large body of literature which
would have been the delight of old and young. But in this volume he
has given at least an indication of what he was capable of doing
towards that end. No one can read these pages without feeling the
charm of a fine and delicate fancy, a rare power of poetic expression,
and a genuinely Irish instinct; without feeling also an intense regret
that the mind and heart from which they proceeded were stilled in
death long before the powers of his genius could have been exhausted.
To myself, as one of the most intimate friends of Edmund Leamy, it is
a melancholy pleasure to have the privilege of writing these few words
of introduction to a volume which, for the purpose of preserving his
memory amongst his countrymen, needs no introduction at all. The
claims of a long friendship, the knowledge of as stainless a life as
has ever been lived, and admiration for moral and intellectual
endowments of the rarest character, render it easy to praise. But I do
not think that I indulge in undue expectation in predicting that the
new audience to which this volume will come will rise from its perusal
with something of the feelings of love, admiration, and regret which
those who knew Edmund Leamy personally will ever cherish in their
hearts.