monwealth ... and what had come from his
hand? A half-dozen three-masted schooners, and not very good schooners
either, being too long in the hull for strength.... And nobody seemed to
care.... From Belfast and the Clyde, iron boats swarmed like flies....
And people were impatient.... They did not care to wait if a ship were
blown from her course.... They wanted ships on time.... People had
laughed at him, calling him crazy, and saying he was trying to stem
progress.... And then they had done worse.... They had smiled and said
it was a hobby of his.... He knew it was no use. He quit.... And Granya
had been very tender.

"You mustn't mind, Shane. It was very lovely of you to dream and act....
But it is not intended. Don't take it to heart, dearest."

"All my life, Granya, I have been trying to do something, and I always
fail."

"Dear Shane, you never fail. The success is in yourself, not outside of
yourself. That is all."

"Ah, yes, Granya, but that is not enough. That seems so selfish. So many
men have done so much for the world, and I have done nothing. Even the
old charwoman on her knees scrubbing floors has done more. She has given
her best, and her best has been useful."

"But, Shane, you must wait. Have patience."

"I am old, Granya, and have done nothing."

"Wait, Shane, wait. I am going to dim the light, and blur all these
things around us, and tell you a secret thought has been deep in my
heart for years. There will be we two just in the room--absolute. And
come nearer the fire, dear Shane, where I can just see where your hand
is, and put my hand on it when the thought makes me feel like a child in
a great wood.... Shane....

"You know your charts, the charts you use and you at sea, the charts of
the heavens, where what stars we know are marked, the sun and the moon
and Venus and Jupiter, and Sirius the dog star, and Saturn, and the star
you steer your ship by, the polar star.... And all the constellations,
the Milky Way, and the belt of Orion, and the Plow and the Great Bear
and the great glory you see when you pass the line, the Southern Cross
... and the little stars you have no names for, but mark them on your
chart with quaint Greek letters.... Our little world is so little, so
pathetically little in this immensity.... It is as though we were living
on the smallest of islands, like some of the islands you have known and
you on board ship following the moon down the West--Saba, where the
Dutch are