We do well, I say, to remember these things. For in our
time it has grown the fashion to praise the men of former times but to
deny their ideal of Independence; and we who live in that ideal, and in
it breathe the old spirit, and preach it and fight for it and prophesy
for it an ultimate and complete victory--we are young men, foolish and
unpractical. And what should be our reply? A reply in keeping with the
flag, its history and its destiny. Let them, who deride or pity us, see
we despise or pity their standards, and let them know by our works--lest
by our election they misunderstand--that we are not without ability in a
freer time to contest with them the highest places--avoiding the boast,
not for an affected sense of modesty but for a saving sense of humour.
For in all the vanities of this time that make Life and Literature choke
with absurdities, pretensions and humbug, let us have no new folly. Let
us with the old high confidence blend the old high courtesy of the
Gaedheal. Let us grow big with our cause. Shall we honour the flag we
bear by a mean, apologetic front? No! Wherever it is down, lift it;
wherever it is challenged, wave it; wherever it is high, salute it;
wherever it is victorious, glorify and exult in it. At all times and
forever be for it proud, passionate, persistent, jubilant, defiant;
stirring hidden memories, kindling old fires, wakening the finer
instincts of men, till all are one in the old spirit, the spirit that
will not admit defeat, that has been voiced by thousands, that is
noblest in Emmet's one line, setting the time for his epitaph: "_When_
my country"--not _if_--but "_when_ my country takes her place among the
nations of the earth.
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