n.
You cannot so see Pearse; he is too strong for even compassionate
laughter. What he embodies is the central strength of Irish
nationalism--its disregard of the immediate event.

Wise men have told me that I ought never to set my foot on a path
unless I can see clearly whither it will lead me. But that
philosophy would condemn most of us to stand still till we rot.
Surely one can do no more than assure one's self that each step one
takes is right; and as to the rightness of a step one is
fortunately answerable only to one's conscience and not to the wise
men of the counting house. The street will pass judgment on our
enterprises according as they have "succeeded" or "failed." But if
one can feel that one has striven faithfully to do a right thing,
does not one stand ultimately justified, no matter what the issue
of one's attempt, no matter what the sentence of the street?

By such teaching he commended to his scholars, and to Ireland, the
spirit which he desired to see expressed in "that laughing gesture of a
young man that is going into battle or climbing to a gibbet." Strange
country, that has the gibbet always before the eyes and almost before
the aspiration of its idealists! It was so yesterday--in all the
yesterdays--and yet the reason is plain. All the aspirations of such
idealists have been regarded as criminal by the class for which Miss
Somerville and her cousin speak--criminal and menacing to those who,
holding the power, arrogated to themselves a monopoly of loyalty. They
have always conceived of Pearse and his like as thirsting for their
blood. Miss Edgeworth, in a letter printed for the first time in _Irish
Memories_, writes:--"I fear our throats will be cut by order of
O'Connell and Co. very soon." We know enough to-day about O'Connell to
realise how far this estimate lay from the truth of things; yet Miss
Somerville herself talks about "Parnell and his wolf-pack." Justin
McCarthy, John Redmond, Willie Redmond--these were some of the wolves
who presumably wanted to tear Miss Somerville's kindred to pieces. That
is where the change must come; there must be among the gentry some
generous understanding of Nationalist leaders before the grave has
closed over them. Anyone can see what is bad in Sinn Fein, but no one
can fight that evil effectively, no one can convert to better uses the
ill-guided force which Sinn Fein represents, until he understands wha