The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-01

myths, and especially with the relig
ious traditions of the country which is
the authors chosen field. Personally
we prefer the more human of these sto-
ries to the bits Of pure legend in which
Columbia, st. Bridget and other Gaelic
saints are the central figures, but the
task of collecting these myths and folk
tales and rewriting them in a style
which is absolutely suited to their
spirit was one we'll worth doing, and
for which Miss Macleod is apparently
the only writer qualified. Some of the
tales she repeats as she heard them
from the lips of the Gaelic fishermen;
others are put together from different
and often contradictory fragments;
others still are reconstructed by the
writer from a single phrase still linger-
ing in the speech of the people, when
the legend that inspired it is hope
lesslv lost in the backward stretches
of time. All are absolutely true to the
Celtic spirit, and whoever wishes to
understand that spirit will find it in
its entirety here.
From the standpoint of literature"The
Amir Choille' is the strongest thing in
the volume. 1t is the old story of the
imprisoned revolt of youth against
Remuneration, and it is more vivid and
real in the story Of the young monk
Cathal mac Art, the protege of st. Col
umba, who cursed the cold Trinity
that forbade him life and love, than
on the pages of the most advanced now
eiist Of the day. The creations of the
advanced novelist, even after he has
done his best to make them wild and
free. are cold, calculating creatures
who tread but timi6ly among the great
emotions, and decline to throw away
nd ha world iOht u rfn
without regret at the call of the heart,
The twelve additional centuries of
Christianity since the days of ST. Col
umba have done something toward
OVERLAPPING the natural paganiSm of the
race, and Cathal mac Art as a type Of
revolt is separated from us by the dust
of years. The legend ends with the
translation of the tortured monk into
the green earth-life, the existence of
dryads and spirits Of the wood, which,
with the primitive instinct for earth
kinship and sympathy, he finds a
heaven more to his taste than any of
which the saints had told.
THE earth-kinship of man, indeed, is
insisted upon by Miss Macleod, who
sayes in her preface:
4'And l, for one, would rather have
the wind for comrade and the white
stars and green leaves for my kith and
kin than many a human companion
WfOSe~ch16f claim Is the req DlOOQ tnaC
differs little from the sap in the grass
or in the pines, and whose "deathless
soul" is, mayhap, no more than a flu
gitive7 light blown idly for an hour be-
twixt dawn and dark and again she
suggests that sin this late day, when
the dust behind and the mist before
hide from US the beauty of the world,
we can regain our birthright only by
leaving our cloud palaces of the brain
and Becoming consciously at one with
the cosmic life of which, merely as
me24 we are no more than perpetual
phosphorescence"
This kind Of pantheism in writer
cannot produce vital work of deep
human interest, but it can, and in the
case OF Miss Macleod does, give us
much that Is rarely fine and exquisite.
(''The waTher of the Ford" by Fiona
Macleod. New York. Stone e. KimbaIl.
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