Presumably "those others" were perfectly sincere in their appreciation of him, but Parnell, so English in his own nature, had a constitutional distrust of English people, and, curiously enough, he did not understand them well, while the Irish character was an open book to him. At a reception like this where the guests were, of course, mostly English, Parnell would retire behind his coldest, most aloof bulwark of exquisite courtesy, and, to use his own simile about Katharine Tynan, "I felt as though a little friendly bird had made a song for me in an unfriendly land." We often afterwards spoke of the "little friendly bird," and, should Mrs. Hinkson (Katharine Tynan) ever see this book, she will know that the "Chief" appreciated both her loyalty and her song.
Directly the result of the Parnell Commission was made known Mr. Parnell was elected a life member of the National Liberal Club; an election which afforded him a certain grave amusement at the time and a query later on, when the "National Liberals" wished to depose him, as to whether a "life member" can dare be so illogical as to continue life without the membership.
On the 8th March, 1889, he was entertained for the second time at the Eighty Club, and, a few days later, at a great meeting at St. James's Hall. At both meetings the enthusiasm was so great that the whole body of people present rose en masse as he entered, cheering, waving handkerchiefs, and shouting his name for some time before they allowed him to sit down.
Naturally these ovations of my hero gave me the greatest pride and joy, but he would never allow me to say much about them.
"You see, my dear, these people are not really pleased with me," he would say. "They thought I had written those letters, and now they are extolling their own sense of justice in cheering me because I did not write them. I might as wisely shout myself hoarse if a court of law decided that Gladstone had not told somebody to rob a bank!" And I would reply: "Well, I love to hear and read about your being properly appreciated," only to get a reproving "You are an illogical woman. These people do not appreciate me, they only howl with joy because I have been found within the law. The English make a law and bow down and worship it till they find it obsolete—long after this is obvious to other nations—then they bravely make another, and start afresh in the opposite direction. That's why I am glad Ireland has a religion; there is so little hope for a nation that worships laws."
And when I persisted, "But don't you feel a little excited and proud when they all cheer you, really you?" and the little flames showed in his eyes as he said, "Yes, when it is really me, when I am in the midst of a peasant crowd in Ireland. Then I feel a little as I do when I see you smile across the street at me before we meet, but for these others it is then I know how I hate the English, and it is then, if I begin to feel a little bit elated, I remember the howling of the mob I once saw chasing a man to lynch him years ago. Don't be too pleased with the clapping of these law-lovers, Queenie. I have a presentiment that you will hear them another way before long, and I am exactly the same, either way!"
At the National Liberal Club, at which Sir Frank Lockwood presided, Mr. Parnell and Lord Spencer shook hands for the first time. When Parnell rose to speak he received a perfect ovation. He said:
"There is only one way in which you can govern Ireland within the Constitution, and that is by allowing her to govern herself in all those matters which cannot interfere with the greatness and well-being of the Empire of which she forms a part. I admit there is another way. That is a way that has not been tried yet.... There is a way in which you might obtain at all events some present success in the government of Ireland. It is not Mr. Balfour's bastard plan of a semi-constitutional, a semi-coercive method. You might find among yourselves some great Englishman or Scotsman, who would go over to Ireland—her Parliamentary representation having been taken away from her—and would do justice to her people notwithstanding the complaints of Irish landlordism. Such a man might be found who, on the other hand, would oppose a stern front to the inciters of revolution or outrage, and on the other hand would check the exorbitant demands of the governing classes in that country, and perhaps the result might be successful. But it would have to be a method outside the Constitution both on the one side and on the other. Your Irish Governor would have to have full power to check the evil-doer; whether the evil-doer were a lord or a peasant, whether the malefactor hailed from Westminster or New York, the power should be equally exercised and constantly maintained. In that way, perhaps, as I have said, you might govern Ireland for a season. That, in my judgment, from the first time when I entered political life, appeared to me to be the only alternative to the concession to Ireland of full power over her own domestic interests, and her future. In one way only, I also saw, could the power and influence of a constitutional party be banded together within the limits of the law; by acting on those principles laid down by Lucas and Gavan Duffy in 1852, that they should hold themselves aloof from all English political parties and combinations, that they should refuse place and office for themselves or for their friends or their relations, and that the Irish constituencies should refuse to return any member who was a traitor to those pledges."
In July Parnell was presented with the freedom of the City of Edinburgh. In his speech of acknowledgment he said:
"In what way could Ireland, supposing she wished to injure you, be more powerful to effect injury to your Imperial interests than she is at present? If you concede to her people the power to work out their own future, to make themselves happy and prosperous, how do you make yourselves weaker to withstand wrongdoing against yourselves? Will not your physical capacity be the same as it is now? Will you not still have your troops in the country? Will you not still have all the power of the Empire? ... In what way do we make you weaker? In what way shall we be stronger to injure you? What soldiers shall we have? What armed policemen shall we have? What cannons shall we have? What single means shall we have, beyond the constitution, that we have not now, to work you injury?"[[6]]