Yet there it was, tranquil, calm, indifferent whether he came
or went. What was he? What was any one? To what purpose the
ineffectual strivings of short-lived humanity? Man's life was but
the shadow of a dream, and his work was but the heaping of sand
which the next tide would level flat again."

Wordsworth's "pathetic fallacy" that the moods of nature correspond
with the moods of man has seldom found such eloquent illustration as
in Morty's vain imaginings. Morty himself was shot dead by English
soldiers in revenge for the murder of Goring. The story is a dismal
and tragic one. But the best qualities of the Irish race are there,
depicted with true sympathy, and perhaps this volume may be held to
confirm Carlyle's opinion, expressed in a letter to Miss Davenport
Bromley, that even The English in Ireland was "more disgraceful to
the English Government by far than to the Irish savageries." Froude,
indeed, never forgot the kindness of the Kerry peasants who nursed
him through the small-pox. He would have done anything for the
Irish, except allow them to govern themselves.

In 1890 Froude contributed to the series of The Queen's Prime
Ministers, edited by Mr. Stuart Reid, a biographical study of Lord
Beaconsfield. He wrote to Mr. Reid on the subject:

". . . Lord Beaconsfield wore a mask to the generality of mankind.
It was only when I read Lothair that I could form any notion to
myself of the personality which was behind. I once alluded to that
book in a speech at a Royal Academy banquet. Lord Beaconsfield was
present, and was so far interested in what I said that he wished me
to review Endymion in the Edinburgh, and sent me the proof-sheets of
it before publication. Edymion did not take hold of me as Lothair
did, and I declined, but I have never lost the impression which I
gathered out of Lothair. It is worse than useless to attempt the
biography of a man unless you know, or think you know, what his
inner nature was .... I am quite sure that Lord Beaconsfield had a
clearer insight than most men into the contemporary constitution of
Europe--that he had a real interest in the welfare and prospects of
mankind; and while perhaps he rather despised the great English
aristocracy, he probably thought better of them than of any other
class in England. I suppose that like Cicero he wished to excel, or
perhaps more like Augustus to play his part well in the tragic
comedy of life. I do not suppose that he had any vulgar ambition