8 My Little Farm 



essential base. Indeed, all the argument seemed 

 to be for the Strand, and every friend was on the 

 same side ; on the Mayo side, nothing but an 

 apparently blind impulse driving me against all 

 reason into solitude. The apparently blind im- 

 pulse reveals itself now as the clearest vision of my 

 life, which shows how shallow may be the best of 

 argument compared with the undefinable forces 

 by which we are sometimes driven against our 

 finest schemes of intellectual prudence. I am 

 sorry for the life never led by higher light than 

 argument. 



I knew that, even in the wilderness, I could live 

 by the pen, without a penny from my farming, 

 and besides, the farm must for a time take every 

 cent I could spare for increased capital ; but there 

 was the farther motive of making my little bit of 

 Ireland a standard in profitable productiveness, 

 that my neighbours might share in the industrial 

 value of any additional capacity that I could bring 

 to the business. If my life could advance their 

 lives without serious loss to me, that alone would 

 be ample reward. In a closely congested district, 

 where every man clamoured for an increase of 

 land, it seemed to me that the net product of the 

 average acre around me could readily be doubled, 

 and without much increasing the average expendi- 

 ture in labour. How could any man in any 

 country ignore such an opportunity to help his 

 fellow man ? There is no special credit in the 

 desire to do it, but rather a special ignominy in the 

 refusal. 



