George Pollexfen was not popular at school nor was he popular as a man. He never talked except upon some subject which long meditation had made his very own, and though a good listener, it was with a perfectly impassive face. Yet though never popular he came to be loved by a few, and as the years went by these few who had discovered him for themselves talked about him to others. There are people who come to us and there are people to whom we go: he was of the latter kind. There are people who go out into the streets, along the roads and gather in their friends in armfuls. These are the popular people, they are irresistible, they are as stimulating as the winds of Spring, wherever they appear opinions are formed and conceit grows. My friend had no conceit and no opinions, and therefore could impart none, but he was as rich in natural fertility as a virgin forest: and though logicians and theoretical people could make nothing of him, poets--my son, for instance--were at ease in his company. The question arises, did he himself love anybody? Though I have known him all his life, I am not sure. He leaned upon my daughter, and perhaps he had some affection for her. He constantly came up from Sligo to Dublin, though the exertion was irksome, to consult her. He would say 'She has a head! she has a head!' and then he would shake his own. His feeling for my son was a kind of enthusiasm; for your genuine puritan has a profound respect for worldly success, in that respect being a Jew of the Old Testament rather than a Disciple of the New. I have already said that if he knew anything about a subject he knew everything: and one of his subjects was racing. Sligo was full of racing men, they are swarming all along the West of Ireland. If a party of these came to see him, they would find him wrapped in his habitual gloom, and they would rouse him by asking some adroit questions about his nephew; and then they would talk about the horses. He himself, I know for a certainty never risked more than ten shillings on any race, but he knew all about the horses. Many years ago I went to Punchestown Races with him: he knew not only everything that was to be known about the horses, but all about the jockeys and their curious histories, & what he knew he presented without philosophy, without theories, without ideas, in a language that recalled the vision of Chaucer and the early poets. On that occasion as always he talked poetry though he did not know it.