From Quiet Quarters.
By-the-Sea, Saturday.
Dear Toby,
I have been intending to write to you for some weeks past, but, really, life passes so quickly here, with such gentle rotation of days and nights, that a week is over before I realise that I have well entered upon it. Besides, I find, in practical experience, that the writing of a letter usually involves the receipt of one; and, though I am not bound by any rule involving the necessity of reading, or even opening the letters that reach me, it is as well to avoid, as far as possible, little annoyances of that kind. I write to you because, in your case, I make an exception to the rule of my epistolary conduct, and really want to hear from you.
The occasion of this solicitude is, that I find chance references in the local weekly paper (I never see a daily) to the Irish Question, which seem to show that it is in a somewhat unusually perturbed state. I daresay if I could make up my mind to open the pile of letters that have been accumulating on my desk for the last month or so, I should be able to inform myself on the subject? But, if I once began that practice, whither would it lead me? I have found, in the course of my public life, that the last thing to do with a letter received through the post, is to open it. My correspondence, conducted in the main upon that principle, answers itself, and thus much labour, and possible friction, are saved.
From the source of intelligence already alluded to, I gather hints that the Government are "being firm" in Ireland, that evictions have been going on, that there have been conflicts between the police and the people, and that even some of my colleagues in the Parliamentary Party have been arrested. One paragraph goes so far as to mention the really interesting circumstance, that W-ll-m O'Br-n, has been cast into gaol, where he sleeps on a plank bed, and that Arth-r B-lf-r, emulating a historic political feat, has stolen his clothes whilst he was sleeping.
This thing is probably an allegory, but it serves to support an opinion I have always had with respect to the future of the Conservative Government, and which enables me from time to time to stand aside from the hurly-burly of active politics. I suppose that what the paragraphist really means by the story of stealing O'Br-n's clothes, is that Arth-r B-lf-r, as representative of Lord S-l-sb-ry's Government, is coming out as an advocate of Home Rule for Ireland. If I misread the allegory, the error has but temporary effect. If it is not true to-day it will be true to-morrow, or the day after, if only the Liberals have the ill-luck to be deprived of precedence in the opportunity. If I never stirred finger or raised voice again, Home Rule would be granted to Ireland by whatever English Party chances to be in power when the moment is ripe. The ball is set spinning, and it would be a mere accident, of no great import to me or the Irish people, whether it is the M-rk-ss or Gl-dst-ne that kicks it into goal.
Hence you will see that though it may strike a superficial observer as odd that I, of all men, should, at such a juncture, absent myself from the field of battle and hide no one knows where, the course is not so unreasonable as it appears. Why should I run the risk of burning my fingers by pulling chestnuts out of the fire, when the foremost men in English politics vie with each other in the effort to do it for me? Amongst the few people with whom I come in contact here I pass for a curate of Evangelical views, who, for private reasons, has quitted his family and congregation, and tries, ineffectually they slily think, to disguise himself by dispensing with clerical garb. I encourage this self-deception, and am left free to sit in the sun when there is any—and there is really an astonishing amount on this Southern coast in November—and when it rains I put up my umbrella. Sometimes I hear on it the patter of distant conflicts in Ireland, and open revolt in London. These echoes of wild disturbance only make the sweeter my retirement. I know that I am foolish to imperil my pastoral peace by inviting a communication from you which may confirm the vague reports I have alluded to. Still, I am a little curious to know is it really true that W-ll-m O'Br-n sleeps on a plank bed; that W-lfr-d Bl-nt, wearied of the long repose of Egyptian affairs, has had his head broken by the Royal Irish Constabulary; and that, with a refined cruelty which testifies to the innate fiendishness of the Saxon nature, the presiding Magistrate at Bow Street Police Court has ruthlessly refused to commit for trial that truculent, dangerous personage, Mr. S-nd-rs, whom I remember in the House as formerly Member for Hull?
Yours serenely,
C. S. P-rn-ll.