§ 5
Here was a great fact, that he lived, but with the fact came a problem: Why? If within him there existed this sentient, supple, strong thing, and it did exist, for what end was it designed? It was not enough to have faith, to know one lived to save one's soul.... That was selfish, and selfishness was an unpardonable thing, the sin against the Holy Spirit. That has ordained there should be one occult purpose.... No, everything had a reason.... The sheltering trees, the ocean from whose womb came the great clouds that nurtured the green grass: the winds that were like gigantic brooms. The wise and the good labored, and never shirked.... Each man must give according to his station, the strong man of strength, the wise one of wisdom; the one who knew beauty must give it somehow, not huddle it like a miser's hoard.... All men must work; that was as natural an instinct as the law that men must eat: and work did not mean grinding, but justifying one's existence fully.... None may hold back, for that is ignoble, and all that is ignoble dies, dies and is used again.... The murderer's dead body may nurture a green bay-tree, such beautiful economy nature has.... And it seemed to him that the souls of dark men were used, too, but used as negations, and that was death.... Perhaps they provided the sinister thunderstorms, the terrible typhoon, the cold polar breezes, the storms off the Horn.... They might be the counterpoint of nature's harmony.... But this was going past knowledge, and past knowledge of heart and head one must not go.... But of one thing he was certain; all that is ignoble dies....
He had always known from the time he was a young boy that man must do something.... It was not sufficient to make a little money and sit down and spend it, as a dog finds a bone and gnaws it, or buries it, in a solitary place.... For a long time he had thought it sufficient to do the little commerce of the world.... But that was not sufficient.... In Buenos Aires he had felt ridiculous, as a giant might feel ridiculous carrying little stones for the making of a grocer's house.... Ashamed, a little resentful! He was like a dumb paralytic with flaming words in his heart and brain, and he could not write them, not even speak them aloud....
But all his life this had worried him, the getting of work to do. And when he came to America with Granya he had come with great plans. Ships and ship-building were the only things he knew, and he had thought with others that the great clipper days might be revived. Iron steamships were grasping the swift commerce of the world, but there were errands great wooden ships under skysails might yet be supreme in, the grain trade of San Francisco, for instance. And it might be possible, so he had dreamed, that once more the great pre-war clippers should be the pride of the new idealistic commonwealth ... and what had come from his hand? A half-dozen three-masted schooners, and not very good schooners either, being too long in the hull for strength.... And nobody seemed to care.... From Belfast and the Clyde, iron boats swarmed like flies.... And people were impatient.... They did not care to wait if a ship were blown from her course.... They wanted ships on time.... People had laughed at him, calling him crazy, and saying he was trying to stem progress.... And then they had done worse.... They had smiled and said it was a hobby of his.... He knew it was no use. He quit.... And Granya had been very tender.
"You mustn't mind, Shane. It was very lovely of you to dream and act.... But it is not intended. Don't take it to heart, dearest."
"All my life, Granya, I have been trying to do something, and I always fail."
"Dear Shane, you never fail. The success is in yourself, not outside of yourself. That is all."
"Ah, yes, Granya, but that is not enough. That seems so selfish. So many men have done so much for the world, and I have done nothing. Even the old charwoman on her knees scrubbing floors has done more. She has given her best, and her best has been useful."
"But, Shane, you must wait. Have patience."
"I am old, Granya, and have done nothing."
"Wait, Shane, wait. I am going to dim the light, and blur all these things around us, and tell you a secret thought has been deep in my heart for years. There will be we two just in the room—absolute. And come nearer the fire, dear Shane, where I can just see where your hand is, and put my hand on it when the thought makes me feel like a child in a great wood.... Shane....
"You know your charts, the charts you use and you at sea, the charts of the heavens, where what stars we know are marked, the sun and the moon and Venus and Jupiter, and Sirius the dog star, and Saturn, and the star you steer your ship by, the polar star.... And all the constellations, the Milky Way, and the belt of Orion, and the Plow and the Great Bear and the great glory you see when you pass the line, the Southern Cross ... and the little stars you have no names for, but mark them on your chart with quaint Greek letters.... Our little world is so little, so pathetically little in this immensity.... It is as though we were living on the smallest of islands, like some of the islands you have known and you on board ship following the moon down the West—Saba, where the Dutch are in the Caribbean, or Grenada, the very little island.... And on that island they know only vaguely that such great lands as Africa and Europe and Asia are.... They don't know it from experience.... But Peking of the bells exists, and stately Madrid, and Paris that is a blaze of light, and London where the fog rolls inland from the sea.... Heart of my heart, how terrible it is that cannot, will not see, understand.... And they say: Well, we don't see it. Here we were born and here we die.... And they say: Show us somebody who has been there.... They forget how long is the journey and how a man may have affairs in the crowning cities.... Dearest, I am losing myself, but I know.
"And this is what I want to tell you, Shane, that when you die—oh, such an ugly word that is, Shane, for the bud bursting into flower—when it is your time to leave here, Shane, there will be a place for you, not idleness at all.... All the stars, Shane, the valleys of the moon.... There is work, Shane dear. Nothing is perfect, else there should be no reason for life. There must be stars that are old, as Dublin is old, and need vitality.... There must be stars that are young and cruel, as this city is young and cruel, and need sweet strength.... But I am very presumptuous, Shane, to try and fathom the Great Master's plan.... It is so colorless—oh, there is no word or symbol for it, Shane.... But there is a Great Master and there is a Plan....
"Heart, I tell you this, showing all my weakness of thought. You know it is the truth, too.... But I tell you I know, so that our two selves' knowing may make it a little stronger in us....
"O Shane, I have no logic, but I know.... And all the logicians in the world could not shame me to myself. All the reason in the world could not shake me. It would be artillery shot against the wind.... A star is a promise to me, Shane, and the wind a token, and the new moon just a pleasant occurrence, like the coming of spring....
"Shane, I know all this. I know it not for myself but for you.... I know three things: I know God lives, I know I love you, I know we shall not die.... I love you, Shane, and there is no shame on me telling it to you, for you are as my heart and I am as yours.... When I see you at times there comes over me a sweetness from head to foot, and at times when I see you, a great dignity comes to me, because you love me, and your love is good.... I know there is a place in the coming days, and I know I shall be with you, wherever you go....
"Here in this dim room, Shane, I know these things. Outside is the world, that is forgetting or that doesn't care, or will not see. Here in this dim room, with the red of the fire turning to a gentle yellow, I know it better than the people in churches, that kindly God lives, that I love you, Shane, and that we shall not die...."