drums of victory.




CHAPTER IV

THE OBVIOUSNESS OF HOME RULE


Ireland, then, has made it her foible to be not only right but
irresistible in her past demands. What is it that she now claims, and on
what grounds? She claims the right to enter into possession of her own
soul. She claims the _toga virilis_, and all the strengthening burdens
of freedom. Now it is difficult to represent such a demand in terms of
argument. Liberty is no mere conclusion of linked logic long-drawn out:
it is an axiom, a flaming avatar. The arguments by which it is defended
are important, but they bear to it much the same relation that a table
of the wave-lengths of various rays of light bears to the immediate
glory of a sunrise. There is another obstacle. Self-government, like
other spiritual realities, say love or civilisation, is too vast,
obvious, and natural to be easily imprisoned in words. You are certainly
in love; suppose you were suddenly asked "to state the case" for love?
You are probably civilised; suppose you were suddenly asked "to state
the case for civilisation"? So it is with the Home Rule idea. To ask
what is the gate of entrance to it is like asking what was the gate of
entrance to hundred-gated Thebes. My friend, Mr Barry O'Brien, in
lecturing on Ireland, used to begin by recounting a very agreeable and
appropriate story. A prisoner on trial was asked whether he would accept
for his case the jury which had tried the last. He objected very