had lost his shadow. Catholic theologians--if the masters of a wisdom
too high and too austere for these days may be invoked--tell us that
the departed soul, even though it be in Paradise, hungers with a great
desire for the Resurrection that it may be restored to its life-long
comrade, the body.

"The crimson-throbbing glow
Into its old abode aye pants to go."

Look again at Ireland and you will discern, under all conflicts, that
unity of memory, of will, of material interest, of temperamental
atmosphere which knits men into a nation. You will notice the presence
of these characteristics, but it is an absence, a void that will most
impress you. You will see not a body that has lost its shadow, but
something more sinister--a soul that has been sundered from its natural
body. She demands restoration. She sues out a _habeas corpus_ of a kind
not elsewhere to be paralleled. That is the "Irish Question."

You may not like this interpretation of things. It may seem to you
fantastic, nasty, perilous to all comfort. Life often does make on the
tender-hearted an impression of coarse violence; life, nevertheless,
always has its way. What other interpretation is possible? Lancashire,
to take any random contrast, is much richer than Ireland in wealth and
population; but Lancashire is not a "Question." Lancashire is not a
"Question" because Lancashire is not a nation. Ireland is a "Question"
because Ireland is a nation. Her fundamental claim is a claim for the
constitutional recognition of nationality.

We have seen that in almost every conflict between English and Irish
ideas the latter have had the justification of success. This holds good