The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1913-08-09

failed in business: and upon Clarence
at a tender age devolved the task Of
Il sister and mother as
well as himself. In Derley Square, a
dingy squalid quarter Of Dublin, not
far from Fishanble street Mangan at
tended a boys school and secured tho
rudiments of an education. It was
the only scholastic training he ever
had. When his father died he was
ployment. For seven years he labored
as copyist in a Scrivener's office at
a meager weekly salary which barely
kept the family alive. 1t was wretched
full of drudgery. with
out adequate compensation; yet there
was one thing meritorious about It
1t brought Mangan into contact with
q well-stocked library. and in spite
OF exacting duties gave him time to
explore the literary treasures locked
up therein"
"Mangan grew up. shy and sensi-
tive. with exquisite sensibility and
fine impulses. eye. ear and soul were
open to all the beauty, music and
glory OF heaven and earth. An exam
ination oil his poems shows that he
must have been a great devourer of
books; and although he had no ,edu-.
cation OF regular ana approved sort, \
and no guidance in his multifarious
reading. yet his enormous literary ac-
quircments could have been made only
by deep and passionate study long
into the night like Jacob wrestling
with the Angel"
We have a picture from the pen of
Mitchell, detailing Mangan at work in
Trinity College library, though the
date is not recorded when he left the
Scrivener's Office or when he was first
engaged at the college: ION entering
the library one day man was point
ed out to me, perched on the top of
a ladder, with the whispered informa-
ton that the figure was Clarence
Mangan. 1t was an unearthly, a
ghostly figure in Il brown garment. to
all appfarances. the same garment
which lasted till the day of his death.
The blancfed hair was totally un-
kempt: the corpse-like features still
arms and all his soul was in the book
He might have beer taken for 4
magician. a poet or 4 murderer. A
spectral creature he certainly was, and
he dreamed and roasted on that lad
der for years. carrying the proceeds
in money to his mothers poor home;
all the while storing his brain with
the literary ore of the place. During
the years spent i'll the library, as
learned afterward, be was the bond
slave of opium.''
of the Nation which first appeared in
4o3S ht IIi0 OuLH OL Tie XUuHS lTeIauQ
Movement. No man. as Mitchell
writes, knew as well all the moods Of
the Irish Harp, and a large number
of his finest compositions for five
years appeared in the columns of the
Nation. Previously he had contrib
uted to the Penny Journals, num-
ber of which were published in Dub
lin. He had already made several
translations from the German, Irish,
Persian, Spanish and Coptic.
In the contributions to the Nation
he depended on his own genius. Johr
Savage thus describes him and his
work: "Out Of that newspaper ONCE
(the Nation's) we perceive strange
looking individual has glided, even as
a shadow on the wall. That shy abb
stracted looking man has held not the
least powerful talisman by which a
nation is moved. Let us look at him
more minutely. He is about the mid
die size: he walks as IL infirm; he 3
stoops and Is abstracted. A thread
bare black coats it brown or black? i
-buttoned up to the throat, sheathes
his attenuated body. His eye is lus-
trously mild and beautifully blue, and
his silver-white locks surround, like
a tender halo. the once beautiful and
now pale and intellectual face OF the
premat1ely aged man before us. !. He