Who, in the time of the Revival, was an aristocrat "with all those qualities that have been so impressively summarised by the Russian philosopher Berdyaev as marks of aristocracy: he was magnanimous, he was unenvious, he was courageous, he had no prejudices, he was a free being. I never knew him to take personal offence . . . During the bitter and revolutionary transport workers strike of 1913, he took the platform for the workers and made a sensation by announcing in that beautiful voice of his, `All the real manhood of this city is to be found amongst those who earn less than a pound a week' "? It was, of course, you see now, AE. And this vision of him comes from Mary Colum, wife of Padraic Colum. It is taken from her book, long out of print and indeed hard to find in second-hand bookshops, Life and the Dream.
She has so many personal, individual views on the great players in that great drama, from Patrick Pearse, whom she puts on a very high pedestal, and in whose school St Ita's, she taught. Her book was published in London in 1947. But to come back to AE and his wit. It was not the plain downright malice of much Dublin derision, but had always "something affectionate and whimsical in it and one remembered it like a caress". It was this, she writes, along with his great magnanimity, that made him the most popular, next to Douglas Hyde, of the men of the Irish Renaissance.
Of Lady Gregory she writes somewhat acidly, but acknowledges her greatness. Yet "there must have been many people in Dublin who really liked her, but actually I remember very few." Mary Colum describes her as "aloof and condescending". But with discipline and cultivation she had acquired a perfectly fearsome charm. Then, having launched her arrows, Mary Colum goes on to genuine admiration for Lady Gregory's achievements. She fought all the slanderers; she was not only a patriotic but a fighting Irishwoman. "It is almost certain that but for Lady Gregory, the Irish National Theatre would have remained a dream . . ."
Then "a dowdy, pleasant young woman, somewhat old-maidish and schoolmarmish, with the heels of her brown stockings showing an elaborate darn" appears: Mary Spring-Rice of the Howth gun-running. "Shy as a rabbit, she had the courage and fighting spirit of several Bengal tigers, and the competency of a few field marshals." Devotion to Pearse, Joyce and Yeats remain after a reading of the book. Y