CHAPTER XXI
A WINTER OF MEMORIES
"Feeling is deep and still, and the word that floats on the surface
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden."
—LONGFELLOW.
Mr. Forster made his notorious attack upon Mr. Parnell in February, 1883, accusing him of encouraging and conniving at murder, outrage, and treachery. On his return home Parnell showed, as he would not deign to show in the House, a fierce joy in the false move of his enemies and the scorn and contempt of the lack of control which could lead a politician of Forster's experience into such a faux pas as this personal attack on him. Here, then, he had what he wanted; in this attack was the repudiation of those charges, made by the "extremists" in Ireland and America, of pandering to the Government—made by them ever since he left Kilmainham on the Treaty—here was another cord to bind the Nationalist forces together without in any way repudiating that Treaty. Here was a fresh weapon given into his hand by an ex-Government official who could not govern his personal spleen by political intelligence.
"No," he said to me, when I asked him if he did not mean to answer Forster at all, "I shall not answer. I shall let him hang himself with his own rope."
But the Party would not have this, and urged him so strongly that he did—not answer—but show his contempt of the whole thing and of the English politicians who had played their hand so badly. He said to me before he started for the House: "By the judgment of the Irish people only do I, and will I, stand or fall," and this he repeated in the House.
The astonishment of the House was unbounded. It had been prepared for anything but this scornful repudiation of the right of the English to judge him—for a downright denial of the charges made, for a skilful fencing with the arguments. The speech of Parnell was a challenge to war. Impassive as ever, betraying no slightest sign of emotion, he tore up the accusations and threw them scornfully in the face of his accuser.[[1]]
Some time afterwards, in an interview I had with him, Mr. Gladstone referred to this declaration of Parnell's—that he would stand or fall only by the judgment of the Irish people.
He said: "You know Mr. Parnell's inmost feelings better than others; does this truly represent his mind, Mrs. O'Shea?"
I answered, as I could truly do: "Yes, Mr. Gladstone, that is his only and absolute ideal. I may say Ireland's is the only voice he regards as having any authority over him in the whole world."
"Yet Mr. Parnell is so much an Englishman in his coldness and reserve?"