k better than he
expected. But he would not like to think that it was hope of literary
success that tempted him from Garranard. He would like to think that in
leaving his poor people he was serving their best interests, and this
was surely the case. For hadn't he begun to feel that what they needed
was a really efficient priest, one who would look after their temporal
interests? In Ireland the priest is a temporal as well as a spiritual
need. Who else would take an interest in this forlorn Garranard and its
people, the reeds and rushes of existence?

He had striven to get the Government to build a bridge, but had lost
patience; he had wearied of the task. Certain priests he knew would not
have wearied of it; they would have gone on heckling the Government and
the different Boards until the building of the bridge could no longer be
resisted. His failure to get this bridge was typical, and it proved
beyond doubt that he was right in thinking he had no aptitude for the
temporal direction of his parish.

But a curate had once lived in Bridget Clery's cottage who had served
his people excellently well, had intrigued successfully, and forced the
Government to build houses and advance money for drainage and other
useful works. And this curate had served his people in many
capacities--as scrivener, land-valuer, surveyor, and engineer. It was
not till he came to Garranard that he seemed to get out of touch with
practical affairs, and he began to wonder if it was the comfortable
house he lived in, if it were the wine he drank, the cigars he smoked,
that had produced this degeneracy, if it were degeneracy. Or was it that
he had worn out a certain side of his nature in Bridget Clery's cottage?
It might well be that. Many a man has mistaken a passing tendency for a
vocation. We all write poetry in the beginning of our lives; but most of
us leave off writing poetry after some years, unless the instinct is
very deep or one is a fool. It might well be that his philanthropic
instincts were exhausted; and it might well be that this was not the
case, for one never gets at the root of one's nature.

The only thing he was sure of was that he had changed a great deal, and,
he thought, for the better. He seemed to himself a much more real person
than he was a year ago, being now in full possession of his soul, and
surely the possession of one's soul is a great reality. By the soul he
meant a special way of feeling and seeing. But the soul i