60 CHARLES STEWART PA11NELL [1885
a distance. On my annual visits to London I saw him occasionally at a dinner-table or under the gallery in the House of Commons, and our conversation on these occasions generally consisted of my criticism on his policy or that of his supporters in Ireland, which he bore with consummate good humour. 1 thought they might have done more to suppress outrages and abate endless turbulence, and I insisted that talking of obtaining the land for the people at * prairie value' was misleading and must end in disastrous disappointment. The Irish movement was one in favour of as just a cause as ever man advocated, but it was not only often reckless in its violence, but, as I was persuaded, hidebound by want of knowledge and experience. Mr, Parnell was entirely unfamiliar with the studies and experiments which had brought a new soul into Ireland nearly half a century before. lie belonged to a family which had roared Thomas Parnell, the author of ' The Hermit/ but lie was so little sympathetic with that ancestry that one of his friends told me he seriously asked hinj what was the use of poetry ? His friend told him, I trust, that one of its most practical lines was to kindle patriotism, to feed it with Divine nourishment, and to re-kindle it after every defeat. The ' new movement,' as it was named, made conflicting impressions upon me. I could-not fail to soo that Mr. Parnoll possessed one gift in perfection the great and rare gift of dominating and controlling men. I had j*<td much experience of Irish parties at home and abroad, and I had soon no one who possessed such mastery of a raco among whom individuality in a passion. 0rattan did not long control the Parliament which lie made independent; O'Cormell among men whose position depended altogether on his will was a joyous companion, among the gay loud-hi.*-* «*ariTr froms check for Lord Salisbury, and checkmate for Mr. by the Orangemen.'— Hansard. American Land League.