Mr. Parnell was entertained by the Members of his own
party on the same day at the Westminster Palace Hotel, by way of celebrating his forty-fourth birthday. We suppose it was his cue on this occasion to exaggerate his success, though often he rather affects the attitude of one who depre- ciates what has already been accomplished. "We all of us must see," he said, "that the time cannot be long distant when the sands of the present Government are nearly run out, and. that if they continue to drag along a feeble and a wretched. existence, it will diminish the possibility of a life hereafter, and that they have come to that point when every moment of continued life dooms them to the tortures of hell in the next General Election. We cannot suppose that the present Government will in their declining months be unmindful of the hereafter. They may make a death-bed repentance. They may dissolve suddenly in the hope that the powers above may not be looking. They may amend in their Irish policy. But on whatever side we look, I do not see that there is the slightest hope for them." That passage is in execrable taste, and very lame as well. Mr. Parnell does not manage the figurative and ironic style happily. According to his theology, "the tortures of hell" precede the final decision of the weighty question whether there is to be a prospect of renovated life or not. Mr. Parnell's confidence is not so great as he wishes us to believe.
Previous page
