I did when she chose you for her leader.
PARNELL (_bitterly_). A dead leader, one whom she can't hurt, may do
better for her.
KATHARINE. Don't say "dead"!
PARNELL. I shan't be alive in twenty years, my dear. And it may take all
that.
KATHARINE. Without you it will take more.
PARNELL. It won't be "without me." That's what I mean. They may beat me
to-day; but I shall still count. Think of all Ireland's failures!
Grattan's Parliament counts; "Ninety-eight" counts; Fitzgerald counts;
O'Connell counts; her famines, her emigrations, her rebellions--all count.
KATHARINE. Does Butt count?
PARNELL. He wasn't a failure: he didn't try to do anything. If Ireland
needs more failures, to make a case for her conviction, shall I grudge
mine? Yes, all her failures count: they get into the blood! Why, even the
silly statues in her streets mean more than statues can mean here.
Prosperity forgets; adversity remembers. Even hatred has its use: it
grips, and drives men on.
KATHARINE. Did you need--hatred, to do that for you?
PARNELL. Yes: till I got love!... Reason, conviction aren't enough. Morley
said a good thing the other day. The English, he said, meant well by
Ireland: but they didn't mean it much.
KATHARINE. I suppose that's true of some?
PARNELL. Quite true: and what is the most that it amounts to? Compromise.
Morley's an authority on compromise. And yet I like him: I get on with
him. But he's too thick with Gladstone to be honest over this.
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