There is a whole department of research concerned with the growth of myths, stage by stage, from a little nebulous blotch into a peopled world of illusion.

The strange evolution there set forth finds an exact parallel in the development of English opinion on Ireland.

And, indeed, the more you study "the Irish Question," as it is envisaged by the ruling mind of Great Britain, the more conscious are you of moving in the realm not of reason but of mythology.
All this will seem obvious even to the point of weariness.

But it is of interest as furnishing a clue to the English attitude towards Irish history; I should rather say attitudes, for there are two.

The first is that of the Man of Feeling.