And how
peacefully the good ships used to lie in the same harbour, under
the same sun; it seemed as if they had reached their goal, and it
seemed as if there was a goal. But soon the mighty sway of our
tasks laid on us as from of old sundered and drove us into
different seas and different zones; and it may be that we shall
never meet again and it may be that we shall meet and not know
each other, so deeply have the different seas and suns changed us.
The law that is over us decreed that we must become strangers one
to the other; and for this we must reverence each other the more,
and for this the memory of our past friendship becomes more
sacred. Perhaps there is a vast invisible curve and orbit and our
different goals and ways are parcel of it, infinitesimal segments.
Let us uplift ourselves to this thought! But our life is too short
and our sight too feeble for us to be friends except in the sense
of this sublime possibility. So, let us believe in our stellar
friendship though we must be enemies on earth."
"A deep and mysterious truth," he said, "I must go, I must go," he
said to himself. "My Irish life is ended. There is a starry orbit,
and Ireland and I are parts of it, 'and we must believe in our
stellar friendship though we are enemies upon earth.'"
He wandered about admiring the large windless evening and the
bright bay. Great men had risen up in Ireland and had failed
before him, and it were easy to account for their failure by
saying they were not close enough to the tradition of their race,
that they had just missed it, but some of the fault must be the
fault of Ireland.
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