Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

IRISH POLITICS AND POLITICAL HISTORY 249
harmoniously and fructify in it. The blowing breeze, fall-
ing rain, sunshine and shade, and curious and inscrutable
properties of earth, air, and water, life-giving, strength-
giving, steal into its heart. Even the howling storm
and December's sharp frosts are of service, compelling
it to drive deeper roots, to put forth protecting sheaths.
Do you think that Nature, seen and unseen, takes such
loving care for a tree and does not take an infinitely greater
care for the work into which a good and brave man puts
his life. You won't think so, I know well. For what
I say here in plain modern language is the doctrine that
lies at the bottom of all Bibles and Gospels, is the very
open secret of this world.
For you, as I have said, the grand difficulty is at the
beginning. Once you have your nucleus or core of loyal
men of the right sort, the task of breaking in recruits will
not be so great. There will be an assimilative absorbing
force proceeding then not from the will of one man but
of many, a strength of surrounding opinion which will
bend the minds of the most refractory, a morale, esprit
de corps code of honour upheld and maintained by the
men themselves. You will, therefore, be most cautious
and careful at the start, gathering around you in the first
instance the very best men that you can procure, imparting
to them your purposes and infusing into them something
of your own spirit.
Your nucleus will be men of approved good conduct,
and your men in authority gentlemen. Believe me it
will be long before in Ireland, outside of the mad world
of politics and newspapers, that labouring men will not