The Candle of Vision

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George William Russell, better known as Æ (1867-1935), mystic, poet, painter, journalist, editor, and practical rural economist, was a pivotal figure in the Irish literary revival and in the emergence of modern Ireland. From the beginning of the twentieth century he formed life-long friendships with W. B. Yeats, George Moore, Lord Dunsany, James Stephens, Stephen Mackenna (translator of the Enneads of Plotinus), James Joyce, and other writers, thinkers, and artists, and was closely associated with the Irish National Theatre Society (later the Abbey Theatre). When I am in my room looking upon the walls I have painted I see there reflections of the personal life, but when I look through the windows I see a living nature and landscapes not painted by hands. So, too, when I meditate I feel in the images and thoughts which throng about me the reflections of personality, but there are also windows in the soul through which can be seen images created not by human but by the divine imagination. I have tried according to my capacity to report about the divine order and to discriminate between that which was self-begotte4n fantasy and that which came from a higher sphere. - Æ, from the Preface The value of Æ's book is raised above debate or doubt. It is, in the first place, the work of a poet. It is, apart from its arguments, a beautiful book, written in exquisite prose and filled with pictures which, whatever their origin, are of an unearthly loveliness. In the second place, it is the work of an earnest and sincere man, convinced of the truth of what he reports and determined to be as lucid and precise as the conditions of his undertaking will permit him to be. . . . There can be no doubt that Æ has here achieved an expression of mysticism remarkable at any time, and almost unique in our times. - The New Statesman I remember how pure, holy and beautiful these imaginations seemed, how they came like crystal water sweeping aside the muddy current of my life. . . . The visible world became like a tapestry blown and stirred by winds behind it. If it would raise but an instant I knew I would be in Paradise. - Æ