Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

IRISH BARDIC HISTORY 43
despotic fact. Then the resuhs become so typical, and
of such enduring value and importance, that not the
historian alone, but all eager and vivid minds are irresis-
tibly attracted thither by influences similar to those which
attract us in storms, in the sea, in running water, in
revolutionary epochs, and in all that seems to indicate
abounding life, movement, and freedom.
Such an escape from the actual is supplied to some
more favoured or more gifted nations in the possession
of a great mythical age lying behind their progress through
time, imparting to their lives its own greatness and glory,
inspiring life and hope and a buoyancy which laughs
at obstacles and will not recognise defeat. The very
lawlessness and audacity of conception which characterise
such imagined ages are ever welcome. They prove over-
flowing youth and hope, and point to a maturity of power.
The Greek race performed mightier achievements than
the fabled labours of Heracles or of the mountain-rending
Titans. The gigantic conceptions of heroism and
strength, with which the forefront of Irish history is
thronged, prove the great future of this race and land,
of which the mere contemplation of the actual restilts of
time might cause even the patriot to despair.
To the Greek bards who shaped the mythology of
Hellas we must remotely attribute all the enormous
influence which Greece has exercised on the world.
But for them, the Greece that we know would not have
been ;
without them the Iliad and Odyssey would never
have arisen, nor the Athenian drama, nor Greek art,
nor architecture. All of these, as we find them, are