gious and redoubled force, after hearing anything of American
opinion; the argument that the only reasonable or reputable excuse for
the English is the excuse of a patriotic sense of peril; and that the
Unionist, if he must be a Unionist, should use that and no other. When
the Unionist has said that he dare not let loose against himself a
captive he has so cruelly wronged, he has said all that he has to say;
all that he has ever had to say; all that he will ever have to say. He
is like a man who has sent a virile and rather vindictive rival unjustly
to penal servitude; and who connives at the continuance of the sentence,
not because he himself is particularly vindictive, but because he is
afraid of what the convict will do when he comes out of prison. This is
not exactly a moral strength, but it is a very human weakness; and that
is the most that can be said for it. All other talk, about Celtic frenzy
or Catholic superstition, is cant invented to deceive himself or to
deceive the world. But the vital point to realise is that it is cant
that cannot possibly deceive the American world. In the matter of the
Irishman the American is not to be deceived. It is not merely true to
say that he knows better. It is equally true to say that he knows worse.
He knows vices and evils in the Irishman that are entirely hidden in the
hazy vision of the Englishman. He knows that our unreal slanders are
inconsistent even with the real sins. To us Ireland is a shadowy Isle of
Sunset, like Atlantis, about which we can make up legends. To him it is
a positive ward or parish in the heart of his huge cities, like
Whitechapel; about which even we cannot make legends but only lies. And,
as I have said, there are some lies we do not tell even about
Whitechapel. We do not say it is inhabited by Jews too stupid to count
or know the value of a coin.

The first thing for any honest Englishman to send across the sea is
this; that the English have not the shadow of a notion of what they are
up against in America. They have never even heard of the batteries of
almost brutal energy, of which I had thus touched a live wire even
before I landed. People talk about the hypocrisy of England in dealing
with a small nationality. What strikes me is the stupidity of England in
supposing that she is dealing with a small nationality; when she is
really dealing with a very large nationality. She is dealing with a
nationality that often threatens, even numerically, to