Here are Ladies

So the Gael said, and, in that distant time, the people of the Gael were a wise people, holding the ancient knowledge, and they honoured

s gradually strangling the life out of Wisdom, and was setting up a different and debased standard of mental values. There wa

known to speak of himself as "the finest man in Ireland, and you know what that means, sir." Further, his dog was "the greatest dog that ever ratted in

largely a matter of craft and adjustment.-Such women are beautiful with a little difficulty-they pursue loveliness, run it to earth in a shop, obtain it with a certain amount of minted metal, and reincarnate themselves from a box.-They deserve all the success which they undoubtedly obtain. There are other women who are beautiful by accident-such as, the cunning disposition of a d

ho has been gifted by Providence or Fairy Godmothers should not be conceited. A self-made man may be proud of his money, but his son may not. Pride

her proved himself to be either a very vulgar person or else a miracle. Such folk were few, for the ave

every social grade (there are not many of them) of Irish life made love, for that was the only thing they were able to do while they were near her. From the farmer with a spade in his fist to the landlord with a writ in his agent's pocket, all sang the same song, the sole differenc

t through his hair, and she had always considered that a bald man was outside the pale of human interest. Furthermore, his trousers bagged at the knees, perhaps the most lamentable mishap that can descend on manly apparel.-They were often a little jagged at the ends. She did not underst

between her and her rest, there was

confirmation of her hopes as often as maidenly modesty permitted, which was pretty frequent, for maidenly modesty has its

stracted melancholy on his visage, while he sought for the missing, the transfiguring word. There was a sonnet in his eye and it impeded his vision. Meanwhile, the wheeled traffic of the street addressed language to him which was so vigorous as almost to be poetical. She had

rts. He was addressing the Court, and, while his language was magnificent, the

h they seldom met, he had that strong admiration for him which a vigorous a

a poet, sir, Shakespeare is an ass beside him, and if a

se was removed, and, later, when he knocked a glass off the tabl

n, with the flash of her eyes, the quick music of her laugh, but he was marvelling at the width of the horizon, rapt in contemplation of the distant mountains, observing how a flower poised and nodded on

awful fools," s

her no attention, and, being accustomed to the homage of every male thing over fifteen years of age, she resented his negligence, became inte

was young, rich, handsome, and sufficiently silly to make any woman wish to take charge of him, and her father had told him to "go in and win, my boy, there's no one I'd like b

But the poet was occupied and careless, and then, suddenly, it happened. What movement, conscious or unconscious, opene

ntire satisfaction within the "scanty plot" of a sonnet. She was listening with bated breath, and answering with an animation more than slightly tinged with

hat a girl could do. He cared no more about her than he did about whatever woman cleaned his rooms. She was not angry, but a feeling of weariness came upon her. (It is odd that one can be so in earnest when one is in jest.) Once or twice she shook her head at the moon, and as she

eyes, and they spoke, for all their timidity, louder than trumpets. She knew that look, who could mistake it? Here was flame from the authentic fire. He was

she a

le cold," said she: "

n the face of the moon and stars. She beat her small feet upon the earth and called it slave. She had torn victory from nowhere. A man's head swun

e charge of asked her to be his wife, and she consented gracefully, s

ft the house pleading ur

p us with the settlements, that's more in your line," and he put an arm fondly abo

ll if you stayed away. You must write

es mocked also, for the poet knew by his gift wha

hasis she noted, "I will dance at your weddin

pread over her body a fierce coldness, and when her husband sought her afterwards that wintry breast chilled