which, perhaps, as blind and believing followers of our leaders, we
have committed ourselves with the ardour of conviction and the
intemperance of ignorance. In this matter of Ireland I believed in the
accusations of brutality, injustice, and general insolence of tyranny
from modern landlords to existing tenants, so constantly made by the
Home Rulers and their organs; and, shocking though the undeniable
crimes committed by the Campaigners were, they seemed to me the tragic
results of that kind of despair which seizes on men who, goaded to
madness by oppression, are reduced to masked murder as their sole
means of defence--and as, after all, but a sadly natural retaliation.
I knew nothing really of Lord Ashbourne's Act; and what I thought I
knew was, that it was more a blind than honest legislation, and did no
vital good. I thought that Home Rule would set all things straight,
and that the National Sentiment was one which ought to find practical
expression. I rejoiced over every election that took away one seat
from the Unionists and added another vote to the Home Rulers; and I
shut my eyes to the dismemberment of our glorious Empire and the
certainty of civil war in Ireland, should the Home Rule demanded by
the Parnellites and advocated by the Gladstonians become an
accomplished fact. In a word I committed the mistakes inevitable to
all who take feeling and conviction rather than fact and knowledge for
their guides.

Then I went to Ireland; and the scales fell from my eyes. I saw for
myself; heard facts I had never known before; and was consequently
enlightened as to the true meaning of the agitation and the real
condition of the people in their relation to politics, their
landlords, and the Plan of Campaign.

The outcome of this visit was two papers which were written for the