I'd rather talk than smoke just now.' 'I am almost sorry for it, though it gives me the tobacco.' 'Are we on your father's property yet ?' 'Yes; part of that village we came through belongs to us, and all this bog here is ours.' 'Why don't you reclaim it?
labour costs a mere nothing in this country.
Why don't you drain those tracts, and treat the soil with lime?
I'd live on potatoes, I'd make my family live on potatoes, and my son, and my grandson, for three generations, but I'd win this land back to culture and productiveness.' 'The fee-simple of the soil wouldn't pay the cost.

It would be cheaper to save the money and buy an estate.' 'That is one, and a very narrow view of it; but imagine the glory of restoring a lost tract to a nation, welcoming back the prodigal, and installing him in his place amongst his brethren.

This was all forest once.
Under the shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O'Caharneys your ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, or skedaddled in double-quick before those smart English of the Pale, who I must say treated your forbears with scant courtesy.' 'We held our own against them for many a year.' 'Only when it became so small it was not worth taking.

Is not your father a Whig ?' 'He's a Liberal, but he troubles himself little about parties.' 'He's a stout Catholic, though, isn't he ?' 'He is a very devout believer in his Church,' said Dick with the tone of one who did not desire to continue the theme.
'Then why does he stop at Whiggery?
why not go in for Nationalism and all the rest of it ?' 'And what's all the rest of it ?' 'Great Ireland--no first flower of the earth or gem of the sea humbug--but Ireland great in prosperity, her harbours full of ships, the woollen trade, her ancient staple, revived: all that vast unused water-power, greater than all the steam of Manchester and Birmingham tenfold, at full work; the linen manufacture developed and promoted--' 'And the Union repealed ?' 'Of course; that should be first of all.

Not that I object to the Union, as many do, on the grounds of English ignorance as to Ireland.