Mr. G.—You have no regrets at the course we took?
J. M.—None—none. It was inevitable. I have never doubted. That does not prevent lamentation that it was inevitable. It is the old story. English interference is always at the root of mischief in Ireland. But how could we help what we did? We had a right to count on Parnell's sanity and his sincerity....
Mr. G. then got up and fished out of a drawer the memorandum of his talk with Parnell at Hawarden on Dec. 18, 1889, and also a memorandum written for his own use on the general political position at the time of the divorce trial. The former contained not a word as to the constabulary, and in other matters only put a number of points, alternative courses, etc., without a single final or definite decision. While he was fishing in his drawer, he said, as if speaking to himself, “It looks as if I should get my release even sooner than I had expected.”
“That,” I said, “is a momentous matter which will need immense deliberation.” So it will, indeed.
Mr. G.—Do you recall anything in history like the present distracted scenes in Ireland?
J. M.—Florence, Pisa, or some other Italian city, with the French or the Emperor at the gates?
Mr. G.—I'll tell you what is the only thing that I can think of as at all like it. Do you remember how it was at the siege of Jerusalem—the internecine fury of the Jewish factions, the Ζηλωταί, and the rest—while Titus and the legions were marching on the city!
We went in to luncheon. Something was said of our friend ——, and the new found malady, Renault's disease.
J. M.—Joseph de Maistre says that in the innocent primitive ages men died of diseases without names.
Mr. G.—Homer never mentions diseases at all.