He climbed to the top of Bray Head, and while he stood there, his mind was full of thoughts that beat backwards and forwards. In olden times, the histories said, Ireland had sent a stream of scholars over the waste places of Europe to fertilise them and make them fruitful. "Now," he thought bitterly, "we send 'bosses' to Tammany Hall...."

He tried to envisage the means whereby Ireland would be brought to the measure and the stature of a dignified and honourable nation ... "not this brawling, whining, cadging, snivelling, Oh-Jesus-have-mercy-on-us disorder!" and he saw only a long, tedious, painful process of self-regeneration. "We must rise on our own wings!"

"But first we must be free, free from the bondage of history, free from the bondage of romance, free from the bondage of politics, free from the bondage of religion, and free from the bondage of our bellies!"

"There are four Irishmen to be conquered and controlled: the Publican, the Priest, the Politician and the Poet...."

"We cannot be friendly with England until we are equal with England ... but England cannot make us equal with her ... we can only do that ourselves!"

"England is our sister ... not our mother!..."

"Catholicism is Death ... and Intolerance is Death. Wherever there is Catholicism there is Decay that will not be stopped until the people protest. Wherever there is Intolerance there is a waste of life, a perversion of energy. When the Protestant ceases, and the Catholic begins, to shout 'To Hell with the Pope,' there will be glory and life in Ireland...."

He tried to plan a means of making a change of mind in Ireland. "We must make opinions and active brains!" and so he saw himself urging his friends to abandon parliaments to the middle-aged and the second-rate, while they bent their minds to the conquest of the schools. "Let the old men make their speeches," he said aloud as if he were addressing a conference. "We'll mould the minds of the children!"

They must exult in service. "I believe in Work ... in the Job Well Done ... in giving oneself without ceasing ... in the holy communion of men labouring together for something which is greater than themselves ... in spending oneself with no reward but to know that one is spent well!..."

They would enlist the young men of generous mind. They would open their minds to the knowledge of the wide world, and would pity the man who was content only to be an islander; and they would give the harvest of their minds to their juniors, so that they, when they grew to manhood, might find greater ease in working for the common good. They would demand, not privileges, but responsibilities. "If we cannot make decisions, even when we decide wrongly, then we are not men!"

"We must kill the Publican, we must subdue the Priest, we must humiliate the Politician, and chasten the Poet...."

"In all our ways, O God, let us guide ourselves!..."

It seemed to him that God was not a Being who miraculously made the world, but a Being who laboured at it, suffered and failed, and rose again and achieved.... He could hear God, stumbling through the Universe, full of the agony of desire, calling continually, "Let there be Light! Let there be Light!..."