The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell - Ii

-<'ET. 39] THE CARNARVON COOTllOVEKSY 87
Lord Carnarvon might attain better access than 1 could to the Irish gentry, such as they were, and a notable English member of Parliament, who has been much heard of since as the leader of a clamorous parliamentary group, made inquiries for him among the landed and professional classes. To illustrate lunv securities for sensitive interests might be obtained, I at the same time wrote a series of papers in the £ Freeman's Journal * on * Colonial Constitutions/ which Lord Carnarvon found very useful.
M have read,' he wrote, ' your articles on "Colonial Constitutions " with great interest, and 1 am glad to see that there is another in to-day's " Freeman.1' I hope that you will continue them, for 1 am satisfied that they are very useful.*
Ju Whig society in Dublin at that time there, was-manifestly a growing conviction, and not by any means a too cheerful one, that the great change wan coming. But old officials, and men who had prospered in finance and speculation, were intractable. l What does the man want?1 said one of these to me at a dinner parly, speaking of Lord Carnarvon. * lie has got all a sensible man can hope for or desire high rank, an adequate fortune, ('harming wife, political and social influence what the d~ 1 more*, can he hope to get by this new 4I will o* the winp " ? He may lose much, but he can gain nothing worth having.* It would have been talking an unknown tongue to tell my interlocutor that these great gifts of fortune which Lord Carnarvon enjoyed implied corresponding duties from which an honourable man dare not shrink.
1 saw Tjord Carnarvon as often as hin engrossing engagements would permit, and he made occasional visits to London. In one of these visits he fulfilled aule movement. I had boon absent thirty years from Ireland, and I asked him to advise me who were the leading men among the gentry able to influence them, and perhaps entitled to speak for them. His answer was that there were no such persons :