the Sorrows of Ireland Author:Pat Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: means to live. Peasants may starve or emigrate, but "great men" must not be found out. I have repeatedly objected to becoming a " great man " myself, preferring ... more »to tell the truth, and to take his bread from no man, but that is not enough. Penniless, unknown, ignorant of the work, and desiring to " lead " nobody, I am guilty of having shown how Irishmen may live well in Ireland, for which I am never to be forgiven. Lord Dudley and his Commission " hope to visit the farm" this summer, but the press must not report the visit, lest the existence of " my patch " should be established—that is our " national press " in Ireland. What must be the life and character represented by it ? In the next chapter I describe some of the methods that have been employed to save the people of Ireland from the grave national danger of having a successful farm among them. II.—Hunted Into Fame. nHHERE was no house, except for the tribe, and, unable to live at an hotel, I put up a tent, with a big lamp, which looked through the canvas like a cone of fire across the lonely hills in the night, causing quaint speculations as to my purpose, among others the idea that I could raise the devil, and cause storms ; but my power over the winds was discredited when my own tent was blown away, and my wicked books ruined in the midnight rain. Twice I was wrecked, but that was nothing to the storms in store for me. So numerous and so incapable, we depended wholly on my journalism, and my journalism depended on things happening worth money in print, which were very rare ; therefore, I decided to make things happen. The life around was rich in dumb tragedies; what if I could make these articulate ? Wherever there were men and women, there ought to be "copy", if but in the organised silence that made thought an...« less