e must give
themselves up to an irritation which they no longer recognise because it
is always present. I often wonder why he gave me his friendship, why it
was he who found almost all the subscribers for my _Wanderings of Usheen_,
and why he now supported me in all I did, for how could he like verses
that were all picture, all emotion, all association, all mythology? He
could not have approved my criticism either, for I exalted Mask and Image
above the 18th century logic which he loved, and set experience before
observation, emotion before fact. Yet he would say, "I have only three
followers, Taylor, Yeats, and Rolleston," and presently he cast out
Rolleston--"Davitt wants to convert thousands, but I want two or three." I
think that perhaps it was because he no more wished to strengthen Irish
Nationalism by second-rate literature than by second-rate morality, and
was content that we agreed in that. "There are things a man must not do to
save a Nation," he had once told me, and when I asked what things, had
said, "To cry in public," and I think it probable that he would have
added, if pressed, "To write oratorical or insincere verse."

O'Leary's movements and intonations were full of impulse, but John F.
Taylor's voice in private discussion had no emotional quality except in
the expression of scorn; if he moved an arm it moved from the shoulder or
elbow alone, and when he walked he moved from the waist only, and seemed
an automaton, a wooden soldier, as if he had no life that was not dry and
abstract. Except at moments of public oratory, he lacked all personality,
though when one saw him respectful and gentle with O'Leary, as with some
charming woman, one saw that he felt its fascination. In letters, or in
painting, it repelled him unless it were harsh and obvious, and,
therefore, though his vast erudition included much art and letters, he
lacked artistic feeling, and judged everything by the moral sense. He had
great ambition, and had he joined some established party, or found some
practicable policy, he might have been followed, might have produced even
some great effect, but he must have known that in defeat no man would
follow him, as they followed O'Leary, as they followed Parnell. His
oratory was noble, strange, even beautiful, at moments the greatest I have
ever listened to; but, the speech over, where there had been, as it
seemed, so little of himself, all coming from beyond himself, we saw
precisely as before an