of my ignominious escape. That is what they called it."

"The wheel," Ellen said, "is always going round. You may be at the
bottom now, but the wheel is going round, only there is no use opposing
the people in their traditions, in their instinct... . And whether the
race is destined to disappear or to continue it is certain that the
last Gael will die a Catholic."

"And the Red Indian will die with the scalp at his girdle."

"We won't talk about religion, we'll talk about things we are agreed
upon. I have heard you say yourself that you would not go back to
America again, that you never enjoyed life until you came here."

"That was because I met you, Ellen."

"I have heard you praise Ireland as being the most beautiful and
sympathetic country in the world."

"It is true that I love these people, and I wish I could become one of
them."

"You would become one of them, and yet you would tear them to pieces
because they are not what you want them to be."

Sometimes he thought he would like to write "A Western Thibet," but he
was more a man of action than of letters. His writings had been so long
confined to newspaper articles that he could not see his way from
chapter to chapter. He might have overcome the difficulty, but doubt
began to poison his mind. "Every race," he said, "has its own special
genius. The Germans have or have had music. The French and Italians
have or have had painting and sculpture. The English have or have had
poetry. The Irish had, and alas! they still have their special genius,
religious vocation."

He used to go for long walks on the hills, and one day, lying in the
furze amid the rough grass, his eyes following the course of the ships
in the bay, he said: "Was it accident or my own fantastic temperament
that brought me back from Cuba?" It seemed as if a net had been thrown
over him and he had been drawn along like a fish in a net. "For some
purpose," he said. "But for what purpose? I can perceive none, and yet
I cannot believe that an accident brought me to Ireland and involved me
in the destiny of Ireland for no purpose."

And he did not need to take the book from his pocket, he knew the
passage well, and he repeated it word for word while he watched the
ships in the bay.

"We were friends and we have become strangers, one to the other. Ah,
yes; but it is so, and we do not wish to hide our strangerhood, or to
dissemble as if we were ashamed of it. We are two ships each with a
goal a