what he seeks, we are sure, not always of a complete picture, but
of a poetic illumination, a revelation of character, a secret
sweetness for which we forgive the weakness or indecision manifest
here and there, and which are relics of the hours before the final
surety was attained.

I do not know what Mr. Yeats' philosophy of life is, but in his
work he has been over-mastered by the spirit of his race, and he
belongs to those who from the earliest dawn of Ireland have sought
for the Heart's Desire, and who have refined away the world, until
only fragments remained to them. They have not accepted life as
it is, and Mr. Yeats could not paint like Reynolds or Romney the
beauty of every day in its best attire. He is like the Irish poets
who have rarely left a complete description of women, but who speak
of some transitory motion or fragile charm--"a thin palm like foam
of the sea," "a white body," or in such vague phrases, until it
seems a spirit is praised and not flesh and blood. I remember the
faces of women and children in his pictures where everything is
blurred or obscured, save faces which have a nameless charm. They
look at you with long-remembered glances out of the brooding hour
of twilight, out of reverie and dream. It is the hidden heart
which looks out, and we love these women and children for this,
for surely the heart's desire is its own secret.

His portraits of men have kindred qualities, and the magnificent
picture of John O'Leary shows him at his best. It is itself a symbol
of the movement of which O'Leary was the last great representative.
The stately patriarchal head of the old chief is the head of the
idealist, so sure of his own truth that he must act, and, if needs
be, become the martyr for his ideal. But the delicate hands are