s letter
and the movement to depose him which it roused in his own party.
Having often before found defiant resolution lead to success, he
determined again to rely on the maxim which has beguiled so many to
ruin, just because it has so much truth in it--"_De l'audace, encore
de l'audace, toujours de l'audace._" The affront to his pride
disturbed the balance of his mind, and made him feel as if even a
temporary humiliation would destroy the prestige that had been won by
his haughty self-confidence. It was soon evident that he had
overestimated his power in Ireland, but when the schism began there
were many besides Lord Salisbury--many in Ireland as well as in
England--who predicted triumph for him. Nor must it be thought that it
was pure selfishness which made him resolve rather to break with the
English Liberals than allow the Nationalist bark to be steered by any
hands but his own. He was a fatalist, and had that confidence in his
star and his mission which is often characteristic of minds in which
superstition--for he was superstitious--and a certain morbid taint may
be discerned. There were others who believed that no one but himself
could hold the Irish party together and carry the Irish cause to
triumph. No wonder that this belief should have filled and perhaps
disordered his own brain.

The swiftness of his rise is a striking instance of the power which
intellectual concentration and a strenuous will can exert, for he had
no adventitious help from wealth or family connection or from the
reputation of having suffered for his country. _Ergo vivida vis animi
pervicit._ When he entered Parliament he was only thirty, with no
experience of affairs and no gift of speech; but the quality that was
in him of leading and ruling men, of taking the initiative, of seeing
and striking at the weak point of the enemy, and fearlessly facing the
brunt of an enemy's attack, made itself felt in a few months, and he
rose without effort to the first place. With some intellectual
limitations and some great faults, he will stand high in the long and
melancholy series of Irish leaders: less lofty than Grattan, less
romantic than Wolfe Tone, less attractive than O'Connell, less
brilliant than any of these three, yet entitled to be remembered as
one of the most remarkable characters that his country has produced in
her struggle of many centuries against the larger isle.

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[35] The _Life of Parnell_, by Mr. R. Barry O'Brien, has t