an brought in the tea, and Harding told him that if Mr.
Carmady called he was to show him in, and it was not long after that a
knock came at the front door.

"You have come in time for a cup of tea, Carmady. You know Rodney?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Carmady used to come to my studio. Many's the time we've had about the
possibility of a neo-pagan Celtic renaissance. But I did not know you
were in London. When did you arrive?"

"Yesterday. I'm going to South Africa. There's fighting going on there,
and it is a brand new country."

"Three Irishmen meet," said Rodney; "one seeking a country with a
future, one seeking a country with a past, and one thinking of going
back to a country without past or future."

"Is Harding going back to Ireland?" said Carmady.

"Yes," said Rodney. "You tried to snuff out the Catholic candle, but
Harding hopes to trim it."

"I'm tired of talking about Ireland. I've talked enough."

"This is the last time, Carmady, you'll be called to talk about
Ireland. We'd like to hear you."

"There is no free thought, and where there is no free thought there is
no intellectual life. The priests take their ideas from Rome cut and
dried like tobacco and the people take their ideas from the priests cut
and dried like tobacco. Ireland is a terrifying example of what becomes
of a country when it accepts prejudices and conventions and ceases to
inquire out the truth."

"You don't believe," said Harding, "in the possibility of a Celtic
renaissance--that with the revival of the languages?"

"I do not believe in Catholics. The Catholic kneels like the camel that
burdens may be laid upon him. You know as well as I do, Harding, that
the art and literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were
due to a sudden dispersal, a sudden shedding of the prejudices and
conventions of the middle ages; the renaissance was a joyous returning
to Hellenism, the source of all beauty. There is as little free love in
Ireland as there is free thought; men have ceased to care for women and
women to care for men. Nothing thrives in Ireland but the celibate, the
priest, the nun, and the ox. There is no unfaith, and the violence of
the priest is against any sensual transgression. A girl marries at once
or becomes a nun--a free girl is a danger. There is no courtship, there
is no walking out, and the passion which is the direct inspiration of
all the world's music and art is reduced to the mere act of begetting
children."

"