he speak such words as
"philanthropy," "humanitarianism," without showing by his tone of voice
that they offended him. The Church pleased him little better; there was an
old Fenian quarrel there, and he would say, "My religion is the old
Persian, to pull the bow and tell the truth." He had no
self-consciousness, no visible pride, and would have hated anything that
could have been called a gesture, was indeed scarce artist enough to
invent a gesture; yet he would never speak of the hardship of his prison
life--though abundantly enough of its humours--and once, when I pressed
him, replied, "I was in the hands of my enemy, why should I complain?" A
few years ago I heard that the Governor of the prison had asked why he did
not report some unnecessary discomfort, and O'Leary had said, "I did not
come here to complain." Now that he is dead, I wish that I could question
him, and perhaps discover whether in early youth he had come across some
teacher who had expounded Roman virtue, but I doubt if I would have learnt
anything, for I think the wax had long forgotten the seal--if seal there
were. The seal was doubtless made before the eloquent humanitarian
'forties and 'fifties, and was one kind with that that had moulded the
youthful mind of Savage Landor. Stephens, the founder of Fenianism, had
discovered him searching the second-hand bookstalls for rare editions, and
enrolled him in his organization. "You have no chance of success," O'Leary
had said "but it will be good for the _morale_ of the country" (_morale_
was his great word), "and I will join on the condition that I am never
asked to enrol anybody." He still searched the second-hand bookstalls, and
had great numbers of books, especially of Irish history and literature,
and when I, exhausted over our morning's casuistry, would sit down to my
day's work (I was writing _The Secret Rose_) he would make his tranquil
way to the Dublin Quays. In the evening, over his coffee, he would write
passages for his memoirs upon postcards and odd scraps of paper, taking
immense trouble with every word and comma, for the great work must be a
masterpiece of style. When it was finished, it was unreadable, being dry,
abstract, and confused; no picture had ever passed before his mind's eye.
He was a victim, I think, of a movement where opinions stick men together,
or keep them apart, like a kind of bird lime, and without any relation to
their natural likes and tastes, and where men of rich natur