THE IRISH MONTHLY

JANUARY, 1907

A WORD TO BEGIN WITH

ERE we goes again." Have you ever heard of the hedgehog who uttered this ungrammatical exclamation?

He challenged a hare to a racing match in a full-blown potato field. The competitors were to run up and down in two contiguous furrows-hidden from each other by the intervening ridge of luxuriant potato stalks-till one of the two should give up as fairly beaten. But the crafty hedgehog whispered to one of his brethren, an accomplice in the plot, to run off and plant himself at the other end of the furrow and to yelp out, "Here we goes again!" when the hare reached that end. And so, between them, without stirring an inch, they kept the poor deluded hare scampering up and down its furrow till it fell down exhausted and vanquished, while the ungrammatical hedgehog still called out cheerily, "Here we goes again!"

This veracious history is not quite equal to the dignity of the occasion, the opening of our thirty-fifth yearly volume. At any rate another milestone on our long journey is passed, and here we go again. In beginning a new stage of our journey we may fall back on a device which has long dropped out of use. A brief preface to a new volume has its advantages, even for a magazine which has long survived the perils of childhood and youth. There would indeed be a certain incongruity in so venerable a periodical stooping to such appeals as the printed page which lies here before us, a relic of our earliest days; and its remoteness is evident from the fact that it calls our publishers "M'Glashan & Gill, 50, Upper Sackville Street." It is an advertisement in an old Irish Catholic Directory, addressed VOL. XXXV.-No. 403.

"To any Priest who may read this page." This is the first of its two paragraphs :

Dear Reverend Father, if you are not already among our very many and very kind friends, I venture to take this way of begging your kind help for the IRISH MONTHLY of which I have charge. It cannot hope to be altogether suitable for your own use, though I trust some of its contents may interest you; but I am sure you will be glad to encourage Irish writers, Irish printers, Irish paper manufacturers, and Irish publishers, by helping to give this sixpenny magazine an opportunity of amusing innocently and sometimes instructing and edifying a large circle of Irish readers. As "nothing succeeds like success," I think it well to add that this enterprise has succeeded beyond our hopes, and that there is no fear but that it will deserve and obtain much greater success.

A little later we put into print another appeal which we never put into circulation, as we ought to have done, since we had gone so far as to procure the signature of the Archbishop of Cashel, Dr. T. W. Croke, whose autograph is appended to the printed page that we have here preserved. Of this also we will rescue a fragment from destruction :

The IRISH MONTHLY has appeared punctually on the first of each month since 1873. It has enlisted a good deal of Irish talent in its service and gained a large amount of public favour. Not only Catholic writers in the Dublin Review, the Tablet, the Freeman's Journal, etc., have borne testimony to its literary merit, but even the Spectator, the Academy, the Whitehall Review, Public Opinion, and other English journals. We are obliged to consult for many classes of readers, and the contents of the magazine have not always been so solid or of so directly religious a character as might be desired; but it has, we believe, done good both directly and indirectly, and its utility will increase according as its position is more firmly established. It is likely to prove, by its permanence at least, an exception to most works of the kind heretofore undertaken in Ireland.

One of our objects in beginning the year with this unnecessary introduction is to bind ourselves to print as speedily as possible various letters and other interesting relics of Aubrey de Vere, Sir Samuel Ferguson, and many others, which in various ways have come into our keeping.

Two gifted women who often contributed to our pages have passed away during the year that is just over-Mrs. Bartle Teeling and Mrs. Carew Rafferty.

Mrs. Bartle Teeling (née Theodora Louisa Lane Clarke) died on the 8th of last November after a long and painful illness,

borne with great patience and resignation, and consoled by the special blessing of the Sovereign Pontiff. Her father was a Protestant clergyman. An intimate friend of her mother, Miss Susan du Boulay, had become a Catholic just before Theodora was born, and prayed that the child might in time do the same, much to the mother's indignation. After twenty years her prayer was granted, and a little later. Mrs. Lane Clarke followed her daughter into the Church. Meanwhile Miss du Boulay had become a Dominican Nun at Stone in Staffordshire, where she did excellent work for Catholic literature under the guidance of Mother Raphael Drane, one of the most gifted women of her age. Miss Lane Clarke married Captain Bartle Teeling, grand-nephew and namesake of Wolfe Tone's secretary at a famous epoch of Irish history. He had fought for Pius the Ninth as a Papal Zouave. For the last twenty or thirty years she was a frequent contributor of historical and biographical articles to the magazines, especially in the United States-the American Catholic Quarterly, Catholic World, and Ecclesiastical Review-and also to Blackwood's Magazine, Gentleman's Magazine, and Temple Bar. She also wrote three short novels, Roman Violets, The Mission Cross, and My Zouave. Her chief contribution to the IRISH MONTHLY was a long and interesting story running through our twenty-second volume (1894), entitled Through Night to Light, not to be confounded with Miss Attie O'Brien's admirable Irish story, Through the Dark Night, which also appeared in our fortunate pages. Just a week after Mrs. Teeling's death died her lifelong friend Mother Gabriel du Boulay, O.S.D., in the eightyfirst year of her age and the fifty-third of her religious profession.

Mrs. Rafferty (née Louisa Carew) was born at Bath, and spent her childhood in the north of France and again (after her schooldays with the Faithful Companions of Jesus at Gumley House, Isleworth) during her mature years in the South at Nice or Arcachon. In 1881 she became the wife of Mr. W. A. Rafferty, J.P., of Springfield, Kilternan. Her continental experience gave a tone to much of her literary work. Her first leaning indeed was towards Art, and she began by devoting a good deal of time to painting, having inherited considerable talent from her uncle, John Carew, the sculptor of "The Death of Nelson" on the monument in Trafalgar Square. Besides a large number of short stories and graceful poems contributed to various periodicals she published Lina's Tales, and Odile, a Tale of the Commune (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son). Those who turn to these pretty volumes, will, however, not find her name on the title page, for she assumed the

pen-name of "Mrs. Frank Pentrill." We have here before us a fine anthology of criticisms on Odile from the Academy, the Spectator, the Month, and a score or two of journals, all giving it the highest praise. To our own pages Frank Pentrill's chief contribution was a delightful series of essays under the title of Everyday Thoughts," treating very wisely and pleasantly on a great variety of topics, such as Children and skylarks," "The Choosing of Wives," "Old Maids "-which essay, by the way, begins with the words "I love old maids" -"The World's Failures," "Midges," etc. We hope the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland keeps in print her contribution to their series of penny stories-The Saddest Sin of All, by Frank Pentrill, one of the most pathetic stories of the miserable effects of intemperance, of which life and literature are full. But, interesting as are these relics of our gifted friend, they will give to strangers no idea of her noble character and beautiful mind.

One of the objects for which we began these introductory words was to consult for new subscribers who will find the serial story, "Terence O'Neill's Heiress," advanced to its ninth chapter. That they may be able to take it up at this stage, let us give a summary of what has taken place in the eight chapters that belong to our preceding volume. Our winsome heroine, Elizabeth O'Neill, is as yet very far from justifying her title of "heiress." She was left a penniless orphan at,birth, her mother dying the death of Rachel after hearing of her hushand's death in a motor-car accient. In the family council none show pity for the poor babe except a married aunt and an unmarried uncle. The latter, Terence O'Neill, makes her his heiress and crosses the ocean to win a fortune for her. Mrs. Tiernan and her good husband make the child one of their family. As she grows up, she suffers a good deal from the two younger girls; but the oldest, Kathleen, almost divides our affectionate interest with the heroine who, of course, goes through many attractive stages of development and cherishes an unselfish love for the uncle who had claimed her as his own, but who has not been heard of for years. Meanwhile Mr. Tiernan becomes embarrassed in his circumstances, and Elizabeth, in order not to be a burden to him, becomes governess to the two young children of Mrs. Arrowsmith, a very rich lady who has come to live in Rathkieran, the ancestral home of the O'Neills, which its owner, another unmarried uncle of Elizabeth, was unable to keep up. They are preparing there for a great house-party for Christmastide. Among the guests is to be a certain wealthy Sybil Bindon, whom Punch, the enfant terrible of the house-so terrible that he has just been sentencedt

to transportation to Clongowes after Christmas-has in his irresponsible chatter linked with Charles Arrowsmith, the eldest son who is already a rising solicitor. And now the new subscriber is perhaps qualified to take up the story of Elizabeth at the point at which the New Year finds it. Nothing remains for us but to wish a Happy New Year to Maga and all its writers and readers.

THE RETURN

I TURNED me to the Nortn unkind;
The northern skies were cold and grey.
There was a bleakness in the wind
As to the North I took my way.

J turned my back upon the hills,

The dreaming hills against the South.
Somewhere amid those glens and rills

Lies my lost youth, lies my lost youth.

The wind that from the mountain blows,
It makes me glad and yet forlorn.
The thoughts of youth were like the rose,
And now my breast has got the thorn.

I go not to the North again,

But turn and take the southward track.
Oh, my lost heaven of sun and rain,

At last your wandering child comes back.

KATHARINE TYNAN.