MEARING STONES : LEAVES FROM MY NOTE-BOOK ON TRAMP IN DONEGAL

Belfast, Ireland: Maunsel and Co. Ltd. (Printed by, 1911. First Edition. Hardcover. Good Plus. Seosamh MacCathmhaoil (Joseph Campbell). Octavo. 8 1/2 in. x 7 in. Cream cartridge paper between blue paper covers. Title labels pasted on to front boards and spine. Boards rubbed and darkened. Pale blue endpapers. Sixteen pencil drawings (approximately 5 1/2 in. x 4 1/2 in.) by the author. Some called the illustrations "somber"; MacCathmhaoil speaks to that (see below). Joseph Campbell (1879-1944), who wrote under the Gaelic form of his name Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil, was a poet, playwright, folklorist and political activist

"...With regard to the pictures illustrating the book, several people who have seen them in the original have criticised their darkness, as if they were all drawn 'in twilight and eclipse'. But the darkness of Donegal was the first thing that struck me when I crossed the frontier at Lifford, and the forty miles' journey through the hills to Ardara bit the impression still more deeply into me. And if I were asked now after a year's exile what I remember most vividly of the country, I should say its gloom. I can see nothing but a wilderness of black hills, with black shadows chasing one another over them, a gleam of water here and there, and just the tiniest little patch of sunlight -- extraordinarily brilliant by contrast with the general darkness -- on half a field, say, with its mearing-stones, to relieve the sense of tragedy that one feels on looking at the landscape..." (pp. 1-2).