"We're separated from them physically," he said, "and I want us to be separated from them politically and spiritually. They're a debased people!..." Henry muttered angrily at that, for his mind was still full of Mary Graham. "They're a debased people ... that's why I want to get free of them ... and all the debasing things in Ireland are part of the English taint. We've nothing in common with them. They're a race of factory-hands and manufacturers; we're a race of farmers and poets; and you can never reconcile us. All you can do is to make us like them ... or worse!" Henry remembered how his father had fulminated against the smooth Englishman who had proposed to turn Glendalough into a place like the Potteries or Wigan. "But isn't there some middle course?" he said weakly. "Isn't there some way of getting at the minerals of Wicklow without making Glendalough a place like Wigan?" "Not if the English have anything to do with it," Marsh answered. "I don't know what Wigan is like.... I suppose it's horrible ... but it's natural to Englishmen. They trail that sort of place behind them wherever they go. Slums and sickness and fat, rich men! If they had anything to do with developing Wicklow they'd make it stink!..." "Well, I don't know," Henry said wearily, for he soon grew tired of arguments in which he was an unequal participator. "I like the English and I can't see any good in just hating them!" "They found a decent, generous race in Ireland," Marsh exclaimed, "and they've turned it into a race of cadgers. Your father admits that. Ask him what he thinks of Arthur Balfour and his Congested Districts Board!..." They went back to the house, and as they went, they talked of books, and as they talked of books, Marsh's mind became assuaged. He had lately published a little volume of poems and he spoke of it to Henry in a shy fashion, though his eyes brightened and gleamed as he repeated something that Ernest Harper had said of them ... but then Ernest Harper always spoke kindly of the work of young, sincere men. "I'll give you a copy if you like," Marsh said to Henry. "Oh, thank you!" Henry exclaimed. "I should love to have it. I suppose," he went on, "it's very exciting to have a book published." "I cried when I first saw my book," Marsh answered very simply. "I suppose women do that when they first see their babies!..." But Henry did not know what women do when they first see their babies. THE SIXTH CHAPTER 1