The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1909-02-20

hrant with passion and pent-up en-
thusiasm, quivered with ecstasy as he
poured out the noble thoughts that
streamed forth from the inexhaustible
supply, stored in his perfect memory.
He conflded to Duffy that his only
3 friends and comrades for years had
been these immortal poets who peo-
pied his isolation with engrossing
visions. Hours in succession as a youth
In. his lonely attic had he recited
7 Shakespeare's tragedies, his brain
throbbing with ardor, his heart burst
Ang with passion, his pinched face wet
with the tears Of delight, and, alas! his
poor stomach empty and his purse
ference of his unfeeling associates had
affected his nervous being to the point
of insanity Poetry was the only vent
for lacerated feelings. Mangan forgot
his pangs of hunger in working out his
Gaelic and German translations, and
in the mystic charms of oriental
rhymes, he banished temporarily all
pricks of poverty, pain and privation.
Would that Mangan had met Duffy
and other literary friends before toll
and penury had crushed out the final
spark Of ambition! His habitual mo-
roseness and taciturnity were fatal to
social success. Mangan persistently
undervalued himself. Everybody I'M
Gerrated him His native jocosity had
dried up for want Of stimulus. His
talk was bereft Of interest, But his
verses throbbed, pulsated, leaped and
bounded. He rushed madly over i'm
.pediments of metre. and rhyme. He
expressed himself with an elusive sub
,tlety that charmed everybody.
His one romance made a desolate
life more sterile. Duffy introduced him
tc Margaret stacpoole. Mangan wor-
SHIPPED her silently two years. When
he offered a. loyal heart to her she
frankly confessed that she was already
welded and awaiting a husbands re-
turn from a quest after fortune over
seas.
Duffy and Davis fathered tho Young
Ireland political party. With The
Nation for their organ. they hoped
to harness Mangan's genius to the
great cause. Years of enforced es-
arrangement had made solitude Man
Ean's' passion. He shuddered at the
alien claims of social intercourse. BY
this time, too. i'll 1s42, he had degener-
ated into confirmed opium eater.
This was followed by the more vulgar
vice Of inveterate intemperance. He
sedulously denied his addiction to
these degrading habits, But there is
NO other explanation Of his mystical
visions, his cataleptic frances, his fixed
and starry moods, his long, inexcusable
absences during which he baffled the
patient search of his friend and hene--
factor, Duffy. Hospitals knew him well.
They were his recurrent refugees. His
landlords hunted him from lodging to
lodging. He concealed his ways of
living SO successfully that nobody has
found the names or addresses of the
chemists from whom lie obtained the
drugs. These orgies were followed by
weeks Of profound pentience, hopeless
remorse. and pitiful promises to re-
form.
James Clarence Mangan lis undoubt
eddy the greatest poet that Ireland has
produced. and yet his name is hardly
mentioned In English literature. But
the cause of this Isl not difficult to ac-
count for. He was IL patriot as we'll
as a poet and ~ prose writer. His writ
ings in the publica lions OF tho day
have never been collected in their en-
tirety, and he was careless Of his fame
like many another genius. Mangan
was the Edgar Allan Poe of Ireland.
He died in restitution but his namo
will live forever in irish hearts.