George on a race-course, above all if mounted on a wild and splendid race-horse, was a transformed being. Puritanism was shattered, torn away, a mere rag of antediluvianism. Then he loved all men, he loved humanity, he loved even himself: a natural man, such as he was meant to be, a pleasant self-esteem, without aggressiveness, smiling from every gesture. I never saw any man on horseback to compare with him, horse and man made a unity of grace and strength. Yes, at such times he was a lovable man, and you never forgot it. I've heard old jockeys talk with enthusiasm of his skill as a steeplechase rider, especially when it came to the 'finish.' These old warriors of the race-course didn't care much about poets and artists, or even successful men of business, but they knew what they were saying when they talked about steeplechasing. I speak of the old days, when the jumps were so high on an Irish race-course that every time a jockey rode he took his life in his hands, and when after every race we were pretty sure to hear the crack of a policeman's rifle sending some gallant steed to his doom because of a broken leg or some such accident, and when a celebrated surgeon would come down from Dublin prepared with all his instruments--at any rate it was so at Punchestown. From time immemorial the Irish have had a passion for horses. A friend of mine once said to an old man past his work 'Tom what are you always thinking about?' 'Sor,' said he, 'I do be thinkin' of horses.' Six weeks before George died my daughter arrived in Sligo for her annual visit; and to her surprise found him in bed. He said to her 'Lily, I think I'm going,' and made no further allusion until two days before his death, when he gave her elaborate directions as to where she would find, in various pockets of his coat, certain sums of money, for the distribution of which he gave her further directions. While awaiting the inevitable event he read diligently during those last weeks, my daughter hunting everywhere among neighbours' houses for novels of a kind to interest him. He died just as dawn was breaking, while the Banshee was crying around the house. As soon as this crying began one of the nurses came and awakened my daughter because another nurse, who had arrived the day before from Dublin, was very much alarmed. The three women heard that crying. At first the nurses had thought it an old woman in distress: at least the new nurse thought so. Then they knew, and one of them went for my daughter. In his solitary musings, and he was always solitary, he had discovered for himself some kind of religious faith neither Protestant nor Catholic which enabled him to look on Death and Eternity with a tranquil mind. As he never went to church and had no sociable impulses and never dealt in opinion his religion remained inarticulate, incommunicable. This curious solitariness was characteristic of the whole family. I myself am eagerly communicative, and when my son first