then, and of subsequent black years, was to Sir George
a figure of pathos hard to match in history. When in England, just after
his work as Pro-Consul had closed, he drew that figure, and its seeming
doom, in tender words. Nay, he was feeling for all men so placed that no
ray of hope dawned upon them from the cradle to the grave. The Irish
peasant could not press his children to his breast, with the knowledge of
being able to leave them the very humblest heritage won from his toil.
Fathers and children, they could merely hope to obtain the temporary use
of a spot of land on which to exercise their industry.

And what was the reward of all this labour? Hardly enough could be
retained, from the proceeds, to procure the meanest food, the most ragged
of clothes. Denied all power of legislation, and of considering and
providing for his own necessities, as a citizen, the Irish peasant had
lost the citizen's faculty, had become paralysed. He succumbed, almost
without a struggle, to the fate brought him by famine, bred of evil days.
He died on the mountain glens, along the sea coast, in the fields, in his
cabin, after shutting the door. He died of starvation, though sometimes
food was near, for he had even lost the hunger sense of the wild beast.

It was a keen project with Sir George, in his last years, to re-issue
from London his proposals on the problem of Ireland. He had not lost
belief in the pamphlet, as a channel for spreading ideas. He liked it, as
he liked a well-thumbed book which, being opened at a page, so remained,
instead of shutting with a snap. And of his venture, which never came
off, he meditated, 'Might it not do good? They don't seem, even now, to
understand all these matters--the real human nature of them. You hear
talk of politics when it isn't politics at all, but men and women and
children. Proceed on that principle and difficulties will quickly
disappear.' He sought to brush aside any veil of words, of terms, which
might confuse and darken problems.

His study-story of some Irish estate, granted by Queen Elizabeth to an
English nobleman, showed how language might determine history. He noted
there, a force at work that tended to cloud the mind and influence the
imagination, in considering such affairs. The estate was called 'a
princely property,' and the new holder was the 'aristocratic owner of the
soil.' He had 'extensive lands in England;' perhaps he had 'the most
beautiful demesne' and 'the finest m