bring him to his mother's house still alive and raving incoherently of the murder, but he dies before he tells his secret and the Clancy name is saved. It is not a very gripping theme, but the play brings to us an acute character study of the typical managing woman of the small farmer class. We feel her tireless energy, her drive, her high pride, assets of worth in the fight to live. There is a little humor, natural and unforced, some picturesqueness of phrase, a revelation of knowledge of life in one corner of Ireland. There is nothing, however, in the play to make it comparable with the three that followed it on the stage of the Abbey Theatre, "The Crossroads" (1909); "Harvest" (1910); and "Patriots" (1912). "The Lesson of Life," a little one-act comedy, presented at the Dun Theatre, Cork, December 2, 1909, Mr. Robinson has disowned. Why I do not know, though the fact that it was not produced at the Abbey may indicate that even at the time of its production he felt that it was not up to the level of his work. Mr. Robinson has not republished "The Lesson of Life," but the reviews state that it was an amusing little play, though in no way a serious reading of life.
"The Clancy Name," "The Crossroads," "Harvest," and "Patriots" are all on themes that hit home at Irish institutions, and yet it would be wrong to say any one of them is basically either satirical or propagandist. All are primarily readings of life. "The Crossroads" alone, perhaps, is more than a reading of life. Certainly, after its needless prologue, it is fine art through to the end. This scene, with its satire of Irish debating societies, is now, wisely, dropped when the play is produced. We can
