CHAPTER I.

THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING.


Whatever may be the ultimate verdict of history upon the long struggle
of the majority of the Irish people for self-government, the picture of
a small country with large aspirations giving of its best unstintingly
to the world, while gaining for itself little beyond sympathy, will
appeal to the imagination of future ages long after the Irish Question,
as we know it, has been buried. It may then, perhaps, be seen that the
aspirations came to nought because they were opposed to the manifest
destiny of the race, and that it should never have been expected or
desired that the Dark Rosaleen should 'reign and reign alone.'
Nevertheless, the fidelity and fortitude with which the national ideal
had been pursued would command admiration, even if the ideal itself were
to be altogether abandoned, or if it were to be ultimately realised in a
manner which showed that the methods by which its attainment had been
sought were the cause of its long postponement. Whatever the future may
have in store for the remnant of the Irish people at home, the continued
pursuit of a separate national existence by a nation which is rapidly
disappearing from the land of all its hopes, and the cherishing of
these hopes, not only by those who stay but also by those who go, will
stand as a monument to human constancy.

The picture will be all the more remarkable when emphasised by a
contrast which the historian will not fail to draw. Across a narrow