Excerpt from Bards and Saints That reason has remained an outcast from the family of European nations, inheritors and preservers of the Promethean fire; nor has the nationality of the anglo-irish, with whom it chiefly rested to make it, as the heirs of a superior culture. All the elements of nation ality exist in Ireland, yet until a discovery of this kind has connected Irish nationalism with universal and essential interests, a share in Irish national aspirations will continue to be, not the neccessary mark of a good citizen, but rather, at best, a development of good nature or special circumstances. It is by a thought movement rather than by a language movement that Ireland will have to show that it holds the germs of true nationality. The cry of nationalism, in the traditional sense of the word, has now, it is to be feared, a belated sound. The day of nations - those imposing entities the report of whose doings still casts a glamour over the daily papers, those Titan friends of humanity each one of which has had its peculiar part.in carrying forward the human Whe day of nations, we have begun to suspect, is passing away. The day of those institutions for which we have at present no more high-sounding names than local self-government, municipal trade, international arbitration, and the like, is already in progrm - the period which from the point of view of the consummations of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.