Front matter

A FEW COPIES REMAINING.

The Little Library—Vol. I. IDYLLS By LAURA JEAN DOUGLAS.

MODERATOR says:—“Some of the most exquisite prose we have read for many a day.”

IRISH NEWS (Belfast) says:—“In the ten ‘Idylls’ which Miss Douglas contributes, we have a group of the sweetest prose poetry possible.... A gallery of lovely pictures.... A thing of beauty and a joy for ever.... The turn-out of the book is equal to anything of the same kind produced in London.”

MRS. ALICE A. PITMAN, author of “TALES FROM LONDON LIFE,” says:—“The pictures are beautifully conceived, and elegantly portrayed.”

IRISH FIGARO says:—“I am grateful to all who essay in a sincere spirit the difficult task of making Dublin a book-producing place. In ‘The Little Library,’ author, editor, publisher, and draughtsman have combined in an honest endeavour to attain that desirable end. The writer of ‘Idylls’ gives us ten short prose-poems, of which I take the liberty to give the first in its entirety as a specimen. It is entitled, ‘A Rose Garden.’... This is a beautiful picture.”

JAMES H. COUSINS says:—“Beautiful prose fancies.”

IRISH DAILY INDEPENDENT says:—“The book is beautifully produced, and a credit to Dublin.”

SCOTTISH SOCIETY says:—“The weirdly-covered little book with the strange frontispiece which comes to us under the title of ‘Idylls,’ will be read with great enjoyment by all whose sense of literary quality is sufficiently educated to appreciate the extreme delicacy of word-painting in water-colours, if it may be so expressed.... In every sense of the word, they are perfect representations of the idyll in its purest form,... impossible to criticise, and difficult properly to praise.”

THE LITTLE LIBRARY.—VOL. 2. EDITED BY M. J. KEATS.

BY JAMES H. COUSINS. WITH COVER DRAWN BY LOUIS H. VICTORY. Dublin: BERNARD DOYLE, FRANKLIN PRINTING WORKS, 9 Upper Ormond Quay. —— 1897.

AND TO THE COMPANION OF MY WANDERINGS AMONG MOST OF THE SCENES HEREIN MENTIONED, WHOSE PRESENCE GILDED THE SUN THAT SHINES UPON, AND PAINTED THE FLOWERS THAT BEDECK THE “FAIR HILLS OF HOLY IRELAND.”

The Legend of the Blemished King—PAGE

Prologue19

Canto I.23

Canto II.30

Canto III.37

Canto IV42

The Legend of Saint Mahee of Endrim49

A Song of Decadence65

The Railway Arch67

Schakhe70

In the Giant’s Ring, Belfast74

The Blind Father78

The Southern Cross85

On the Death of William Morris87

Copernicus89

To Algernon Charles Swinburne90

Heaven and Earth91

On Some Twentieth Century Forecasts92

Ireland93