3
He climbed to the top of Bray Head, and while he stood there, his mind was full of thoughts that beat backwards and forwards. In olden times, the histories said, Ireland had sent a stream of scholars over the waste places of Europe to fertilise them and make them fruitful. "Now," he thought bitterly, "we send 'bosses' to Tammany Hall...."
He tried to envisage the means whereby Ireland would be brought to the measure and the stature of a dignified and honourable nation ... "not this brawling, whining, cadging, snivelling, Oh-Jesus-have-mercy-on-us disorder!" and he saw only a long, tedious, painful process of self-regeneration. "We must rise on our own wings!"
"But first we must be free, free from the bondage of history, free from the bondage of romance, free from the bondage of politics, free from the bondage of religion, and free from the bondage of our bellies!"
"There are four Irishmen to be conquered and controlled: the Publican, the Priest, the Politician and the Poet...."
"We cannot be friendly with England until we are equal with England ... but England cannot make us equal with her ... we can only do that ourselves!"
"England is our sister ... not our mother!..."
"Catholicism is Death ... and Intolerance is Death. Wherever there is Catholicism there is Decay that will not be stopped until the people protest. Wherever there is Intolerance there is a waste of life, a perversion of energy. When the Protestant ceases, and the Catholic begins, to shout 'To Hell with the Pope,' there will be glory and life in Ireland...."
He tried to plan a means of making a change of mind in Ireland. "We must make opinions and active brains!" and so he saw himself urging his friends to abandon parliaments to the middle-aged and the second-rate, while they bent their minds to the conquest of the schools. "Let the old men make their speeches," he said aloud as if he were addressing a conference. "We'll mould the minds of the children!"
They must exult in service. "I believe in Work ... in the Job Well Done ... in giving oneself without ceasing ... in the holy communion of men labouring together for something which is greater than themselves ... in spending oneself with no reward but to know that one is spent well!..."