when I see young priests, who served my Masses long ago,
standing in cathedral stalls in all the glory of purple and ermine, and
when I see great parishes passing into the hands of mere boys, and poor
old Daddy Dan passed over in silence. I know, if I were really good and
resigned, I would bless God for it all, and I do. But human nature will
revolt sometimes, and people will say, "What a shame, Father Dan; why
haven't you the red buttons as well as so and so," or, "What ails the
Bishop, passing over one of the most learned men in the diocese for a
parcel of gossoons!" I suppose it was my own fault. I remember what
magnificent ideas I had. I would build factories, I would ferr the
streets, I would establish a fishing station and make Kilronan the
favorite bathing resort on the western coast; I would write books and
be, all round, a model of push, energy, and enterprise. And I did try. I
might as well have tried to remove yonder mountain with a pitchfork, or
stop the roll of the Atlantic with a rope of sand. Nothing on earth can
cure the inertia of Ireland. It weighs down like the weeping clouds on
the damp heavy earth, and there's no lifting it, nor disburthening of
the souls of men of this intolerable weight. I was met on every side
with a stare of curiosity, as if I were propounding something immoral or
heretical. People looked at me, put their hands in their pockets,
whistled dubiously, and went slowly away. Oh, it was weary, weary work!
The blood was stagnant in the veins of the people and their feet were
shod with lead. They walked slowly, spoke with difficulty, stared all
day at leaden clouds or pale sunlight, stood at the corners of the
village for hours looking into vacuity, and the dear little children
became old the moment they left school, and lost the smiles and the
sunlight of childhood. It was a land of the lotos. The people were
narcotized. Was it the sea air? I think I read somewhere in an old
philosopher, called Berkeley, that the damp salt air of the sea has a
curious phlegmatic effect on the blood, and will coagulate it and
produce gout and sundry disorders. However that be, there was a weary
weight on everything around Kilronan. The cattle slept in the fields,
the fishermen slept in their coracles. It was a land of sleep and
dreams.

I approached the agent about a foreshore for the pier, for you cannot,
in Ireland, take the most preliminary and initial step in anything
without going, cap in hand, to