Excerpt from The Poetical Works of Thomas Macdonagh It is strange to look back to the time when I first knew Thomas MacDonagh. What with the present great war in Europe, and our own small war in Ireland, that time has so faded and retreated that one recalls it with difficulty and regards it with something of astonishment - yet it is only six years ago. Was there that peace, that gentleness, that good-humour? And was the MacDonagh of April, 1916, the same man with whom I walked and talked and quarrelled in 1910? One could quarrel with MacDonagh, but not for more than three minutes at a time, and if he were ruffled the mere touch of a hand or the wind of a pleasant word appeased him instantly. I have seldom known a man in whom the instinct for friendship was so true, nor one who was so prepared to use himself in the service of a friend. He was intensely egotistic in his speech; so, it seems to me, were all the young Irishmen of that date; but in his actions he was utterly unselfish. At that time he lived a kind of semi-detached life at the gate-lodge of Mr. Houston's house in the Dublin hills. To this house all literary Dublin used to repair, and there MacDonagh was constantly to be seen. He was a quaint recluse who delighted in company, and he fled into and out of solitude with equal precipitancy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.