ness of
England, and when subject to his fevers, he is unrestrained in his cries
and deeds. That pertains to the nature of him. Of course, if we have no
belief in the virtues of friendliness and confidence--none in regard to
the Irishman--we show him his footing, and we challenge the issue.
For the sole alternative is distinct antagonism, a form of war. Mr.
Gladstone's Bill has brought us to that definite line. Ireland having
given her adhesion to it, swearing that she does so in good faith,
and will not accept a smaller quantity, peace is only to be had by our
placing trust in the Irish; we trust them or we crush them. Intermediate
ways are but the prosecution of our ugly flounderings in Bogland; and
dubious as we see the choice on either side, a decisive step to right or
left will not show us to the world so bemired, to ourselves so miserably
inefficient, as we appear in this session of a new Parliament. With his
eighty-five, apart from external operations lawful or not, Mr. Parnell
can act as a sort of lumbricus in the House. Let journalists watch and
chronicle events: if Mr. Gladstone has humour, they will yet note a
peculiar smile on his closed mouth from time to time when the alien body
within the House, from which, for the sake of its dignity and ability to
conduct its affairs, he would have relieved it till the day of a
warmer intelligence between Irish and English, paralyzes our machinery
business. An ably-handled coherent body in the midst of the liquid
groups will make it felt that Ireland is a nation, naturally dependent
though she must be. We have to do with forces in politics, and the great
majority of the Irish Nationalists in Ireland has made them a force.

No doubt Mr. Matthew Arnold is correct in his apprehensions of the
dangers we may fear from a Dublin House of Commons. The declarations
and novel or ultra theories might almost be written down beforehand.
I should, for my part, anticipate a greater danger in the familiar
attitude of the English metropolitan Press and public toward an
experiment they dislike and incline to dread:--the cynical comments, the
quotations between inverted commas, the commiserating shrug, cold irony,
raw banter, growl of menace, sharp snap, rounds of laughter. Frenchmen
of the Young Republic, not presently appreciated as offensive, have had
some of these careless trifles translated for them, and have been stung.
We favoured Germany with them now and then, before Germany becam