well as around the open hearth of the most lowly peasant, in town and
country, wherever there were hearts that hoped for Irish liberty and
that throbbed to the martial music of "the old cause," the name of
Parnell was revered with a devotion such as was scarcely ever rendered
to any leader who had gone before him. A halo of romance had woven
itself around his figure and all the poetry and passion of the mystic
Celtic spirit went forth to him in the homage of a great loyalty and
regard. The title of "The Uncrowned King of Ireland" was no frothy
exuberance as applied to him--for he was in truth a kingly man, robed
in dignity, panoplied in power, with a grand and haughty bearing
towards the enemies of his people--in all things a worthy chieftain of
a noble race. The one and only time in life I saw him was when he was
a broken and a hunted man and when the pallor of death was upon his
cheeks, but even then I was impressed by the majesty of his bearing,
the dignity of his poise, the indescribably magnetic glance of his
wondrous eyes, and the lineaments of power in every gesture, every
tone and every movement. He awed and he attracted at the same time. He
stood strikingly out from all others at that meeting at Tralee, where
I was one of a deputation from Killarney who presented him with an
address of loyalty and confidence, which, by the way, I, as a youthful
journalist starting on my own adventurous career, had drafted. It was
one of his last public appearances, and the pity of it all that it
should be so, when we now know, with the fuller light and knowledge
that has been thrown upon that bitterest chapter of our tribulations,
that with the display of a little more reason and a juster
accommodation of temper, Parnell might have been saved for his
country, and the whole history of Ireland since then--if not, indeed,
of the world--changed for the better. But these are vain regrets and
it avails not to indulge them, though it is permissible to say that
the desertion of Parnell brought its own swift retribution to the