III

Yes; and in paying a fitting tribute to those great men who are our exemplars, it would be fitting also, in conclusion, to remember ourselves as the inheritors of a great tradition; and it would well become us not only to show the splendour of the banner that is handed on to us, but to show that this banner we, too, are worthy to bear.  For, how often it shall be victorious and how high it shall be planted, will depend on the conception we have of its supreme greatness, the knowledge that it can be fought for in all times and places, the conviction that we may, when least we expect, be challenged to deny it; and that by our bearing we may bring it new credit and glory or drag it low in repute.  We do well, I say, to remember these things.  For in our time it has grown the fashion to praise the men of former times but to deny their ideal of Independence; and we who live in that ideal, and in it breathe the old spirit, and preach it and fight for it and prophesy for it an ultimate and complete victory—­we are young men, foolish and unpractical.  And what should be our reply?  A reply in keeping with the flag, its history and its destiny.  Let them, who deride or pity us, see we despise or pity their standards, and let them know by our works—­lest by our election they misunderstand—­that we are not without ability in a freer time to contest with them the highest places—­avoiding the boast, not for an affected sense of modesty but for a saving sense of humour.  For in all the vanities of this time that make Life and Literature choke with absurdities, pretensions and humbug, let us have no new folly.  Let us with the old high confidence blend the old high courtesy of the Gaedheal.  Let us grow big with our cause.  Shall we honour the flag we bear by a mean, apologetic front?  No!  Wherever it is down, lift it; wherever it is challenged, wave it; wherever it is high, salute it; wherever it is victorious, glorify and exult in it.  At all times and forever be for it proud, passionate, persistent, jubilant, defiant; stirring hidden memories, kindling old fires, wakening the finer instincts of men, till all are one in the old spirit, the spirit that will not admit defeat, that has been voiced by thousands, that is noblest in Emmet’s one line, setting the time for his epitaph:  “When my country”—­not if—­but “when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth.”  It is no hypothesis; it is a certainty.  There have been in every generation, and are in our own, men dull of apprehension and cold of heart, who could not believe this, but we believe it, we live in it:  we know it.  Yes, we know it, as Emmet knew it, and as it shall be seen to-morrow; and when the historian of to-morrow, seeing it accomplished, will write its history, he will not note the end with surprise.  Rather will he marvel at the soul in constancy, rivalling the best traditions of undegenerate Greece and Rome,