social and agrarian redemption of Ireland on which a new political
structure will some day be reared--is perhaps even now about to
rise--these things make one of the most brilliant, one of the most
dramatic, chapters in our modern history.

[Illustration: ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR]

It was in 1888, two years after Mr. Forster's death, that we found
ourselves for a Sunday at Whittinghame. It was, I think, not long before
the opening of the Special Commission which was to inquire into the
charges brought by the _Times_ against the Parnellites and the Land
League. Nothing struck me more in Mr. Balfour than the absence in him of
any sort of excitement or agitation, in dealing with the current charges
against the Irishmen. It seemed to me that he had quietly accepted the
fact that he was fighting a revolution, and, while perfectly clear as to
his own course of action, wasted no nervous force on moral reprobation
of the persons concerned. His business was to protect the helpless, to
punish crime, and to expose the authors of it, whether high or low. But
he took it as a job to be done--difficult--unpleasant--but all in the
way of business. The tragic or pathetic emotion that so many people were
ready to spend upon it he steadily kept at a distance. His nerve struck
me as astonishing, and the absence of any disabling worry about things
past. "One can only do one's best at the moment," he said to me once, _a
propos_ of some action of the Irish government which had turned out
badly--"if it doesn't succeed, better luck next time! Nothing to be
gained by going back upon things." After this visit to Whittinghame, I
wrote to my father:

I came away more impressed and attracted by Arthur Balfour than
ever. If intelligence and heart and pure intentions can do anything