id, "no bigger than Rathmines, and in it
Michael Angelo, Donatello, Del Sarto, and Da Vinci lived, and lived
contemporaneously. Now what have these great pagans left the poor
Catholic Celt to do? All that he was intended to do he did in the tenth
century. Since then he has produced an incredible number of priests and
policemen, some fine prize-fighters, and some clever lawyers; but
nothing more serious. Ireland is too far north. Sculpture does not get
farther north than Paris--oranges and sculpture! the orange zone and
its long cigars, cigars eight inches long, a penny each, and lasting
the whole day. They are lighted from a taper that is passed round in
the cafes. The fruit that one can buy for three halfpence, enough for a
meal! And the eating of the fruit by the edge of the canal--seeing
beautiful things all the while. But, Harding, you sit there saying
nothing. No, you're not going back to Ireland. Before you came in,
Carmady, I was telling Harding that he was not acting fairly towards
his biographer. The poor man will not be able to explain this Celtic
episode satisfactorily. Nothing short of a Balzac could make it
convincing."

Rodney laughed loudly; the idea amused him, and he could imagine a man
refraining from any excess that might disturb and perplex or confuse
his biographer.

"How did the Celtic idea come to you, Harding? Do you remember?"

"How do ideas come to anyone?" said Harding. "A thought passes. A
sudden feeling comes over you, and you're never the same again. Looking
across a park with a view of the mountains in the distance, I perceived
a pathetic beauty in the country itself that I had not perceived
before; and a year afterwards I was driving about the Dublin mountains,
and met two women on the road; there was something pathetic and wistful
about them, something dear, something intimate, and I felt drawn
towards them. I felt I should like to live among these people again.
There is a proverb in Irish which says that no man ever wanders far
from his grave sod. We are thrown out, and we circle a while in the
air, and return to the feet of the thrower. But what astonished me is
the interest that everybody takes in my departure. Everyone seems
agreed that nothing could be more foolish, nothing more mad. But if I
were to go to meet Asher at Marseilles, and cruise with him in the
Greek Islands, and go on to Cairo, and spend the winter talking to
wearisome society, everyone would consider my conduct mo