sand copies had been sold before anybody had time to read it, and
then came a dead stop.

Gavan Duffy knew nothing of my plans, and so was guiltless, and my friend
had heard me discuss many things that evening. I had perhaps dispraised
the humanitarian Stephen Phillips, already in his first vogue, and praised
Francis Thompson, but half-rescued from his gutter; or flouted his belief
in the perpetual marriage of genius and virtue by numbering the vices of
famous men; this man's venery, that man's drink. He could not be expected
to remember that where I had said so much of no account, I said one
thing, and he had made no reply, that I thought of great account. He died
a few months ago, and it would have surprised and shocked him if any man
had told him that he was unforgiven; had he not forgotten all about it
long ago? A German doctor has said that if we leave an umbrella at a
friend's house it is because we have a sub-conscious desire to re-visit
that house; and he had perhaps a sub-conscious desire that my too
tumultuous generation should not have its say.

X

I was at Sligo when I received a letter from John O'Leary, saying that I
could do no more in Dublin, for even the younger men had turned against
me, were "jealous," his letter said, though what they had to be jealous of
God knows. He said further that it was all my own fault, that he had
warned me what would happen if I lived on terms of intimacy with those I
tried to influence. I should have kept myself apart and alone. It was all
true; through some influence from an earlier generation, from Walt
Whitman, perhaps, I had sat talking in public bars, had talked late into
the night at many men's houses, showing all my convictions to men that
were but ready for one, and used conversation to explore and discover
among men who looked for authority. I did not yet know that intellectual
freedom and social equality are incompatible; and yet, if I had, could
hardly have lived otherwise, being too young for silence. The trouble came
from half a dozen obscure young men, who having nothing to do attended
every meeting and were able to overturn a project, that seemed my only
bridge to other projects, including a travelling theatre. We had planned
small libraries of Irish literature in connection with our country
branches; we collected books and money, sending a lecturer to every branch
and taking half the proceeds of that lecture to buy books. Maud Gonne,
whose beauty could