your principles, and declare a dividend to yourself out of your
patriotism openly and at the same time.

I would not reason with you, but that I know there is something
truly great and noble in you, and there have been hours when the
immortal in you secured your immortality in literature, when you
ceased to see life with that hard cinematograph eye of yours, and
saw with the eyes of the spirit, and power and tenderness and
insight were mixed in magical tales. But you were far from the
innermost when you wrote of my countrymen us you did.

I have lived all my life in Ireland, holding a different faith from
that held by the majority. I know Ireland as few Irishmen know it,
county by county, for I traveled all over Ireland for years, and,
Ulster man as I am, and proud of the Ulster people, I resent the
crowning of Ulster with all the virtues and the dismissal of other
Irishmen as thieves and robbers. I resent the cruelty with which
you, a stranger, speak of the lovable and kindly people I know.

You are not even accurate in your history when you speak of Ulster's
traditions and the blood our forefathers spilt. Over a century ago
Ulster was the strong and fast place of rebellion, and it was in
Ulster that the Volunteers stood beside their cannon and wrung the
gift of political freedom for the Irish Parliament. You are
blundering in your blame. You speak of Irish greed in I know not
what connection, unless you speak of the war waged over the land;
and yet you ought to know that both parties in England have by Act
after Act confessed the absolute justice and rightness of that
agitation, Unionist no less than Liberal, and both boast of their
share in answering the Irish appeal. They are both proud today of