don in front of me, partly covered with clouds. As far as I could see there were little groups of people on their way to the chapel at Ballyferriter, the men in homespun and the women wearing blue cloaks, or, more often, black shawls twisted over their heads. This procession along the olive bogs, between the mountains and the sea, on this gray day of autumn, seemed to wring me with the pang of emotion one meets everywhere in Ireland, an emotion that is partly local and patriotic, and partly a share of the desolation that is mixed everywhere with the supreme beauty of the world."
The comment on Ireland, her ways and her place among the peoples, that many a dramatist would have permitted himself to express through some character chosen to play chorus to the action, Synge now and then permits himself in the travel sketches. In "From Galway to Gorumna," which he wrote for the "Manchester Guardian's" investigation of the congested districts, is one of such rare avowals, an avowal to treasure along with those of his all too short prefaces: "It is part of the misfortune of Ireland that nearly all the characteristics which give color and attractiveness to Irish life [he has been speaking of 'men dressed in homespuns of the gray natural wool, and the women in deep madder-dyed petticoats and bodices, with brown shawls over their heads'] are bound up with a social condition that is near to penury, while in countries like Brittany the best external features of the local life—the rich embroidered dresses, for instance, or the carved furniture—are connected with a decent and comfortable social condition."
