It was also, it seems, good politics.
Chamberlain knew too--must have known; for Chamberlain's no fool; and yet
to his friend, the deceived husband, said nothing! It wasn't politics; not
then. Now--now it's the great stroke, and Home Rule goes down under it....
Is that history, or is it "Alice in Wonderland"?... If you are my ruin
now, you were also my ruin then, when you were helping me to think that I
could win justice for a nation from politicians like these: win it by any
means except by beating them, bringing them to their knees, making them
red with the blood of a people always in revolt, till their reputation
stinks to the whole world! And when they do at last climb down and accept
the inevitable, then their main thought will be only how to save their own
face--and make it look a little less like the defeat they know it to be!
KATHARINE. My dear, you are so tired. Do rest!
PARNELL. I _am_ resting: for now--thanks to you--I have got at the
truth! Political history is a thing made up of accidents; but not so the
fate of men or of nations whose will is set to be free. No accident there!
That you were tied to a man you wouldn't live with, who wouldn't live with
you--was an accident. But our love was no accident; it was waiting for us
before we knew anything. You and I had each a star which shone at the
other's birth.
KATHARINE. Your star was mine, dearest. I hadn't one of my own.
PARNELL. Well, if nations wish to be fooled, let them go to the devil
their own way, not laying the blame of their own folly on others! But
having got _you_--would I ever have let you go for any power under
Heaven? Why (as soon as you were free) did I marry you? I knew that,
politically, it was a blunder: that over there it would go against us--
prove the case.
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