No More Learning

It is those French wines that did it.

MARTIN.

I have been beyond the earth. In Paradise, in that happy townland,
I have seen the shining people. They were all doing one thing or
another, but not one of them was at work. All that they did was but the
overflowing of their idleness, and their days were a dance bred of the
secret frenzy of their hearts, or a battle where the sword made a sound
that was like laughter.

THOMAS.

You went away sober from out of my hands; they had a right to have
minded you better.

MARTIN.

No man can be alive, and what is paradise but fulness of life, if
whatever he sets his hand to in the daylight cannot carry him from
exaltation to exaltation, and if he does not rise into the frenzy of
contemplation in the night silence. Events that are not begotten in joy
are misbegotten and darken the world, and nothing is begotten in joy if
the joy of a thousand years has not been crushed into a moment.

THOMAS.

And I offered to let you go to Dublin in the coach!

MARTIN [_giving banner to PAUDEEN_].

Give me the lamp.
The lamp has not yet been lighted and the world is to
be consumed!

[_Goes into inner room. _

THOMAS [_seeing ANDREW_].

Is it here you are, Andrew? What are these beggars doing? Was this
door thrown open too? Why did you not keep order? I will go for the
constables to help us!

ANDREW.

You will not find them to help you. They were scattering themselves
through the drinking-houses of the town, and why wouldn't they?

THOMAS.

Are you drunk too? You are worse than Martin. You are a disgrace!

ANDREW.