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December, 1923

E have now a good weekly journal in Dublin, the new Irish Statesman, edited by our admirable A. E., a publicist almost of the Miltonic order, who has thus found an opportunity for giving a much needed direction to the perplexed and disorganized opinion of respectable people in Ireland. It is part of the design of the new weekly to give a lead to Irish literature, but there is not at present much Irish literature to organize: literature being one of the last of the social activities to "come in" after a period of revolution. I see that A. E. refers to an assertion in that the Irish Literary Movement had come to an end, and says that the funeral oration pronounced was premature, for that since it was uttered Irish literature has been enriched by three notable books, The Return of the Hero, by Michael Ireland; the beautiful Deirdre, by James Stephens; and lastly by the long expected novel of Padraic Colum, Castle Conquer. But I must have expressed myself very clumsily if what I said could be taken for an assertion that Irish literature is dead: on the contrary, I think literature is the particular vocation of Ireland. What I wished to say, when I had the pleasure of reviewing Mr Boyd's book, Ireland's Literary Renaissance, was that it told a story complete in itself, though Heaven alone knows which of the writers studied by Mr Boyd has struck the most fruitful vein. The three works mentioned fit easily into his scheme, and introduce no novel element (I speak from hearsay of Mr Colum's novel, which I have not yet read).

I should like to add here that in my last Letter I made a very generally shared mistake in attributing The Return of the Hero to Mr Stephens. It proves to have been a remarkable tour de force in Mr Stephens' manner by a writer whose ordinary style is quite different. Mr Stephens, at all events, appears to have struck a fruitful vein.

If the question, What is the chief distinction of Irish literature? were addressed to the principal Irish authors of the present day, most of them I think would answer that it is the possession of a