Publisher's Synopsis
A selection of Canon Sheehan's Essays brought out in a shape that, enhances the enjoyment Of perusal, is likely to add to the repute of the author and to be eagerly welcomed by his many admirers.Those who have read Matthew Arnold's preface to his selection of Wordsworth's poems will probably agree that its conclusions apply also to Canon Sheehan's prose essays. The first On the list, " The Literary Life," is a lecture delivered before the Cork Literary Society: itS wealth Of allusions show the breadth Of its author's researches SO that we do not wonder at, his final appeal to our literary leaders. After many helpful hints, he adds -"I feel I am contravening the opinions of each and every section into which modern Ireland is divided when I say that in the work of nation-building the chief requisite should be architects of large, liberal ideas, gathered from the world"s chief thinkers and assimilated so perfectly, that they would be manifested in firmer judgments, wider speculation, more generous Sympathies, and larger toleration than we find in our little world of to-day. And I do not, know where that knowledge is to be acquired unless at the feet of the "masters of those who know" in every age, of every country and clime."If Canon Sheehan spoke the truth of his own literary contemporaries in Ireland, when thus condemning 'provincialism' in thought and scholarship, he would rejoice had he lived to see our day. He seems to describe precisely the spirit of this new and more hopeful time, which may soon be able to show Catholicism to the world in its true sense in every direction-political, social, moral, and religious. This wholly charming and inspiring book will disappoint no one who has the good luck to procure a copy.
