Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._

'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,

'_December_ 30, 19--.

'DEAR MISS GLYNN,

'I should have written to you before, but I lacked courage. Do you
remember saying that the loneliness of the country sometimes forced you
to kneel down to pray that you might die? I think the loneliness that
overcame you was the loneliness that comes at the end of an autumn day
when the dusk gathers in the room. It seems to steal all one's courage
away, and one looks up from one's work in despair, asking of what value
is one's life. The world goes on just the same, grinding our souls away.
Nobody seems to care; nothing seems to make any difference.

'Human life is a very lonely thing, and for that it is perhaps
religious. But there are days when religion fails us, when we lack
courage, lonesomeness being our national failing. We were always
lonesome, hundreds of years ago as much as to-day. You know it, you have
been through it and will sympathize. A caged bird simply beats its wings
and dies, but a human being does not die of loneliness, even when he
prays for death. You have experienced it all, and will know what I feel
when I tell you that I spend my time watching the rain, thinking of
sunshine, picture-galleries, and libraries.

'But you were right to bid me go on with the book I spoke to you about.
If I had gone away, as you first suggested, I should have been unhappy;
I should have thought continually of the poor people I left behind; my
abandonment of them would have preyed on my mind, for the conviction is
dead in me that I should have been able to return to them; we mayn't
return to places where we have been unhappy. I might have been able to
get a parish in England or a chaplaincy, but I should have always looked
upon the desertion of my poor people as a moral delinquency. A quiet
conscience is, after all, a great possession, and for the sake of a
quiet conscience I will remain here, and you will be able to understand
my scruple when you think how helpless my people are, and how essential
is the kindly guidance of the priest.

'Without a leader, the people are helpless; they wander like sheep on a
mountain-side, falling over rocks or dying amid snowdrifts. Sometimes
the shepherd grows weary of watching, and the question comes, Has a man
no duty towards himself? And then one begins to wonder what is one's
duty and what is duty--if duty is something more than the opinions of
others, something more