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After this follows a passage which, though we admire its

felicity of phrase, appears owing to its pessimism to be in contradiction to the ferocious " optimism" of the no prisoners and cemetery passage. " ` What matter if for Ireland dear we fall ? ' is still the idiots' little song. The idiocy is sanctified by the memories of a time when there was really nothing to be done for Irish freedom but die for it ; but the time has now come for Irishmen to learn to live for their country. Instead of which they start runaway engines down the lines, blow up bridges, burn homesteads and factories, and gain nothing by it. The cause of Ireland is always dogged by the ridicule which we have such a fatal gift of provoking and a futile gift of expressing."

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