tions, would the Irish leader ask his countrymen to blot
from their minds and from their hearts so recent and so terrible a
wound? Would he attempt to change the whole direction of a nation's
feeling? The boldest and the most generous might well have hesitated.
Redmond did not.

This is not to say that he spoke without full reflection. He always
thought far ahead; and in these tense days of waiting upon rumour, he
must have pondered deeply upon all the possibilities--must have had
intuition of what this opportunity, England's difficulty, might mean for
Ireland. Other minds were on the same trail. In the Dublin papers of
that morning were two letters of moment--one of them from Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle.

"The chief point which has divided Protestant Ulster from the rest of
Ireland," he wrote, "is that Nationalists were not loyal to the Empire."
Then, recalling briefly the extent to which Irish Nationalists had
helped in creating that Empire, he went on: "There is no possible reason
why a man should not be a loyal Irishman and a loyal Imperialist
also.... A whole-hearted declaration of loyalty to the common ideal
would at the present moment do much to allay the natural fears of Ulster
and to strengthen the position of Ireland. Such a chance is unlikely to
recur. I pray that the Irish leaders may understand its significance and
put themselves in a position to take advantage of it."

The other letter, written from a different standpoint, was signed by Mr.
M.J. Judge, a most active Irish Volunteer who had been wounded in the
scuffle on the way back from Howth. "England," he said, "might inspire
confidence by restoring it. She could bestow confidence by immediately
arming and equipping the Irish Volunteers. The Volunteers, properly
armed and equipped, could preserve Ireland from invasion, and England
would be free to utilize her 'army of occupation' for the defence of her
own shores."

Redmond could not have seen either of these letters, but those two
trains of thought were blended in his speech--which was less a speech
than a supreme action. It was the utterance of a man who has a vision
and who, acting in the light of it, seeks to embody the vision in a
living reality.

Mr. Bonar Law followed Sir Edward Grey with a few brief sentences of
whole-hearted support. Then Redmond rose, and a hush of expectation went
over the house. I can see it now, the crowded benches and the erect,
solid figure with the massive hawk-visaged