Journal And Letters Of Stephen Mackenna

JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF STEPHEN MAGKENNA EDITED WITH A MJEVCOIR BV E. R. DODDS AND A PREFACE BY LONDON CONSTABLE fif GO LTD 1936 PUBLISHED BY Constable and Company Ltd. LONDON The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited TORONTO PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLVHOSX AND CO. LTI. THE t NXVBKStrV FRBSS, GLASGOW Stephen MacKenna at forty. Fromanoilpaintii byAmyDn cker. TO ALL THOSE FRIENDS OF STEPHEN MACKENNA WHO HAVE SPENT TIME AND TROUBLE IN PROVIDING MATERIAL FOR THIS BOOK J AND IN PARTICULAR TO TWO PERSONS WITHOUT WHOSE HELP ITS PREPARATION WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE MARGARET NUNN AND SIR ERNEST DEBENHAM CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE, BY PADRAIC GOLLJM - xi MEMOIR, BY E. R. DODDS I JOURNAL gi LETTERS ---.... INDEX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS STEPHEN MACKENNA AT FORTY. FROM AN OIL PAINT ING BY AMY DRUCKER - Frontispiece FACING PAGE STEPHEN MACKENNA TALKING IN A PARIS CAF. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 40 STEPHEN AND MARIE MAGKENNA IN THEIR GARDEN AT SEAVIEW TERRACE. FROM AN OIL PAINTING BY MARY DUNCAN l8o STEPHEN MACKENNA AT SIXTY. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH PREFACE liv PADR. VO COLT M T HE first time 1 saw Stephen MacKenna was in the office of the Freemans Journal in one of the shabby dens in which a leader-writer confined himself between n p. m. and 2 a. m. He entered the den and was startled to see me waiting there he did not know who I was, and it seemed that I bore a striking resemblance to a friend of his who was dead to Lionel Johnson. He got over his sur prise, and I told him my name and mentioned that Arthur Griffith had told me I ought to step in to see him when I happened to be in the Freeman office at night Stephen MacKcnna had only recently come back to Dublin, and I was then doing an occasional literaryarticle for the Freeman. As I walked home after my talk with him I felt that Stephen MacKenna was one of the most extraordinary persons I had ever met extraordinary, but winning. The trait that mainly impressed me was his eloquence. dont mean to say that he had burst into oratory or had declaimed anything. But his was a speech that was ready and apt, original and witty his mind was like a violin string, his voice vivacious and many-cadenced, often taking on the mounting enunciation of the Gaelic speaker Yet this was not a public man he was diffident, with a courtesy that respected the personality of others I sup pose he was about forty at the time, with blue-black hair, an odd face that showed marked check-bones, an open mouth covered with a moustache and quickly-moving dark eyes a face that had rapid changes of expression I thought that perhaps he was an aloof and fitful man who, because he was ao natively Irish, could be a indeed he was gay and companionable After that first meeting I used oftca to see him at night in the office, He wrote leadens, as I have said not on XI