The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 3 (of 8): The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the StarsYeats, W. B. (William Butler)
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The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 3 (of 8): The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
English literature -- Irish authors
We who hold the faith have no right to speak against trance or vision.
Saint Elizabeth had them, Saint Benedict, Saint Anthony, Saint
Columcille. Saint Catherine of Siena often lay a long time as if dead.
THOMAS.
That might be so in the olden time, but those things are gone out
of the world now. Those that do their work fair and honest have no
occasion to let the mind go rambling. What would send my nephew, Martin
Hearne, into a trance, supposing trances to be in it, and he rubbing
the gold on the lion and unicorn that he had taken in hand to make a
good job of for the top of the coach?
FATHER JOHN [_taking up ornament_].
It is likely it was that sent him off. The flashing of light upon
it would be enough to throw one that had a disposition to it into a
trance. There was a very saintly man, though he was not of our church;
he wrote a great book called _Mysterium Magnum_ was seven days in
a trance. Truth, or whatever truth he found, fell upon him like a
bursting shower, and he a poor tradesman at his work. It was a ray of
sunlight on a pewter vessel that was the beginning of all. [_Goes to
the door and looks in._] There is no stir in him yet. It is either the
best thing or the worst thing can happen to anyone, that is happening
to him now.
THOMAS.
And what in the living world can happen to a man that is asleep on his
bed?
FATHER JOHN.
There are some would answer you that it is to those who are awake that
nothing happens, and it is they that know nothing. He is gone where all
have gone for supreme truth.
THOMAS.
[_Sitting down again and taking up tools._]
Well, maybe so. But work must go on and coachbuilding must go on,
and they will not go on the time there is too much attention given
to dreams. A dream is a sort of a shadow, no profit in it to anyone
at all. A coach, now, is a real thing and a thing that will last for
generations and be made use of to the last, and maybe turn to be a
hen-roost at its latter end.
FATHER JOHN.
I think Andrew told me it was a dream of Martin’s that led to the
making of that coach.
THOMAS.
Well, I believe he saw gold in some dream, and it led him to want to
make some golden thing, and coaches being the handiest, nothing would
do him till he put the most of his fortune into the making of this
golden coach. It turned out better than I thought, for some of the
lawyers came looking at it at Assize time, and through them it was
heard of at Dublin Castle ... and who now has it ordered but the Lord
Lieutenant! [_FATHER JOHN nods._] Ready it must be and sent off it must
be by the end of the month. It is likely King George will be visiting
Dublin, and it is he himself will be sitting in it yet.
FATHER JOHN.
Martin has been working hard at it, I know.
THOMAS.
You never saw a man work the way he did, day and night, near ever since
the time six months ago he first came home from France.
FATHER JOHN.
I never thought he would be so good at a trade. I thought his mind was
only set on books.
THOMAS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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