back of Granville's chair, the draft of the famous letter in an
unsealed envelope. While he read the Queen's speech to the rest I
perused and reperused the letter. Granville also read it. I said to Mr
G. across Granville: 'But you have not put in the very thing that
would be most likely of all things to move him,' referring to the
statement in the original draft, that Parnell's retention would mean
the nullity of Gladstone's leadership. Harcourt again regretted that
it was addressed to me and not to P. and agreed with me that it ought
to be strengthened as I had indicated if it was meant really to affect
P.'s mind. Mr G. rose, went to the writing-table and with me standing
by wrote, on a sheet of Arnold M.'s grey paper, the important
insertion. I marked then and there under his eyes the point at which
the insertion was to be made and put the whole into my pocket. Nobody
else besides H. was consulted about it, or saw it."

Thus the fate of a great man and, to a very considerable extent also,
the destiny of an ancient nation was decided by one of those
unaccountable mischances which are the weapons of Fate in an
inscrutable world. I think that to-day Ireland generally mourns it
that Parnell should ever have been deposed in obedience to a British
mandate--or perhaps, as those who conscientiously opposed Mr Parnell
at the time might prefer to term it, because of their fidelity to a
compact honestly entered into with the Liberal Party--an alliance
which they no doubt believed to be essential to the grant of Home
Rule.

We have since learned, through much travail and disappointment, what
little faith can be reposed in the most emphatic pledges of British
Parties or leaders, and we had been wiser in 1890 if we had taken
sides with Parnell against the whole world had the need arisen. As it