ording to the Civil
Code, but without Episcopal or Catholic sanction, the storm broke
afresh, and a hypocritical world worked overtime trying to rival the
Billingsgate Calendar. The newspapers employed watchers, who picketed
the block where Parnell and his wife lived, and telegraphed to
Christendom the time the lights were out, and whether Mr. Parnell
appeared with a shamrock or a rose in his buttonhole. The facts that
Mrs. Parnell wore her hair in curls, and smilingly hummed a tune as she
walked to the corner, were construed into proof of brazen guilt and a
desire to affront respectable society.

Gladstone was a strict Churchman, but he was also a man of the world.
Parnell's offense was the offense committed by Lord Nelson, Lord
Hastings, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Charles Dilke, Shakespeare, and
most of those who had made the name and fame of England worldwide.
Gladstone might have stood by Parnell and steadied the Nationalist Party
until the storm of bigotry and prejudice abated; but he saw his chance
to escape from a hopeless cause, and so he demanded the resignation of
Parnell while the Irish were still rabid against the best friend they
ever had. Feud and faction had discouraged Gladstone, and now was his
chance to get out without either backing down or running away! By the
stroke of a pen he killed the only man in Great Britain who rivaled him
in power--the only Irishman worthy to rank with O'Connor and Grattan. It
was an opportunity not to be lost--just to take the stand of virtue and
lift up his hands in affected horror, instead of stretching out those
hands to help a man whose sole offense was that he loved a woman with a
love that counted not the cost, hesitated at no risk, and which
eventually led not only to financial and political ruin, but to death
itself.

Parnell died six months after his marriage, from nerve-wrack that had
known no respite for ten years.

In half-apology for his turning upon Parnell, Gladstone once afterward
said, "Home Rule for Ireland--what would she do with it anyway?" In this
belief that Home Rule meant misrule, he may have been right. James
Bryce, a sane and logical thinker, thought so, too. But this did not
relieve Gladstone of the charge of owning a lumber-yard and putting up
the price of plank when his friend fell overboard.

The ulster of virtue, put on and buttoned to the chin as an expedient
move in times of social and political danger, is a garment still in
vogue.