THE WORLD'S DEBT TO THE IRISH 
them in their great sagas. Gladstone once said 1n 
an article published in “Gleanings of Past Years,” 
(Vol. 7): 
“For when we are seeking to ascertain the meas- 
ure of that conception which any given race has 
formed of our nature, there is, perhaps, no single 
test so effective, as the position which it assigns to 
woman. For as the law of force is the law of brute 
creation, so in proportion as he is under the yoke 
of that law does man approximate to the brute. 
And in proportion, on the other hand, as he has 
escaped from its dominion, is he ascending into the 
higher sphere of being and claiming relationship 
with Deity. But the emancipation and due ascend- 
ancy of women are not a mere fact, they are the 
emphatic assertion of a principle, and that principle 
‘s the dethronement of the law of force and the 
enthronement of other and higher laws in its place 
and its despite.” 
As might have been expected President Roosevelt 
was enthusiastic over the supremely human qualities 
that he found exhibited in these old Irish sagas but 
was particularly taken with the characters attributed 
to the Irish women of the olden time. Deirdre 
whose love brought sorrow in her train as did that 
of Helen was not the only woman whom the Irish 
poets picture as transcendently charming. Among 
the Irish women there were also the Andromaches 
who proved to be eminently worthy of all a man’s 
love for them and who filled up and made the lives 
of their husbands ever so much more worth while 
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