and so would he, when he joined. The death of Gilbert had seemed
to him to be a casual thing, a tragic accident, but when Ninian had been
killed, it had seemed to him that here was no fortuity, that Gilbert and
Ninian had died inevitably, that Roger and he, when they went out, would
be unable to escape this destiny ... and everything that he had done
since Ninian's death had been done in that belief. He would finish a
book, he would marry Mary, he would settle his estate as best he could
... and then he would make the end that Gilbert and Ninian had made....

But now, as he put Roger's letter down, he had a swift, compelling
desire to dodge his destiny, to elude death, to alter the course of
things. Why should he die? Why should he yield himself up, his youth,
his work, his love, his hope of happiness and renown and honour ... to
this consuming thing! He could look to years of happiness with Mary,
years of work on his books, years of enjoyment of things won and earned
... and he was to give up all that promise and go to a bloody death in
war? Not every man who went was killed or even wounded ... one knew that
... but _he_ would be killed ... he knew that, he told himself, as well
as he knew that he was then alive. Sensitive-natured men, such as he,
were bound to be killed ... they had not the phlegm of men with blunter
natures ... they would not be able to keep still when stillness meant
safety ... their nerves would go, and in that hideous hell of noise and
battering, of men killing or being killed, his mind might be
destroyed....

That seemed to him to be the worst thing of all. He might not be killed
... he might be made mad....

"I can do other work," he said to himself. "I can work for Ireland. I
can try to make things friendlier here!..."

He planned a group of Young Irishmen, as he named them, to do for
Ireland what Roger's Improved Tories had hoped to do for England. They
could study the conditions of Irish elementary education; they could try
to make a survey of Irish wealth in the hope of discovering the
incidence of its distribution; they could make an enquiry into work and
wages, and try to stimulate the growth of Trades Unionism. He could help
to make opinion, to create a social consciousness, to establish a
tradition of honourable service to the community.... There were a host
of things he could do, valuable things, for Ireland, things that were
not now being done by any one. He knew people in Dublin,