s
inclined to read more of disquietude than of truth, and one said is the
country so extraordinarily peaceful that it can be dismissed in three
lines. There is too much peace or too much reticence, but it will be
some time before we hear from outside of Dublin.

Meanwhile the sun was shining. It was a delightful day, and the streets
outside and around the areas of fire were animated and even gay. In the
streets of Dublin there were no morose faces to be seen. Almost everyone
was smiling and attentive, and a democratic feeling was abroad, to which
our City is very much a stranger; for while in private we are a sociable
and talkative people we have no street manners or public ease whatever.
Every person spoke to every other person, and men and women mixed and
talked without constraint.

Was the City for or against the Volunteers? Was it for the Volunteers,
and yet against the rising? It is considered now (writing a day or two
afterwards) that Dublin was entirely against the Volunteers, but on the
day of which I write no such certainty could be put forward. There was a
singular reticence on the subject. Men met and talked volubly, but they
said nothing that indicated a personal desire or belief. They asked for
and exchanged the latest news, or, rather, rumour, and while expressions
were frequent of astonishment at the suddenness and completeness of the
occurrence, no expression of opinion for or against was anywhere
formulated.

Sometimes a man said, "They will be beaten of course," and, as he
prophesied, the neighbour might surmise if he did so with a sad heart or
a merry one, but they knew nothing and asked nothing of his views, and
themselves advanced no flag.

This was among the men.

The women were less guarded, or, perhaps, knew they had less to fear.
Most of the female opinion I heard was not alone unfavourable but
actively and viciously hostile to the rising. This was noticeable among
the best dressed class of our population; the worst dressed, indeed the
female dregs of Dublin life, expressed a like antagonism, and almost in
similar language. The view expressed was--

"I hope every man of them will be shot."

And--

"They ought to be all shot."

Shooting, indeed, was proceeding everywhere. During daylight, at least,
the sound is not sinister nor depressing, and the thought that perhaps a
life had exploded with that crack is not depressing either.

In the last two years of world-war our ideas on death