Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1893-03-05
"TAY pAY"OCONNOR
THE "LoNooN SPEAKER" ON THE
DISTINGUISHED IRISH EDITOR
lie Has Become Public Necessity in the
Great City--Meteoric Briiiiancy OF
His Many Publications.

OF the meteoric brilliancy OF his journal
ism). has for some years now been quite
an institution in English public life.
As politician and journalist, melli-
fuous orator and picturesque. de-
scriptive writer. Irish oostructionist
and Radical agitator, biographer. trans
lator. critic, we have had 10 consider him
in many aspects, and have done so from
time to time with somewhat puzzled feel
ings. Not always, let it be ayowed, have
Enghshmen been willing to suffer lay
Pay" gladly. There were those who were
heard TO resent the notion OF this expan-
siye Irishman coming over. like Goth TO
old Rome, and making London his toy.
Some criticised his taste. and didn't ike
it: others-as If In that he we're an excep-
tion among politicians-said he was ego
tistical. But all that was before T. p. was
understood as well as he IS now or rather,
TO put it better, it was before he conquered
US.
SPELL OF THE BRoGUE.
We are conquered now-under the spell
of the honeyed brogue, the genial smile.
and the shrewd, sane, knowledgable.
cood-humored way of looking at life and
its depressing problems-and whatever
eee we nav think or feel about Il. L. We
are ready TO suffer him most gladly. Who
in "polItics or society" would now DO
without his racy paper of q Sunday morn
I inR2 1t has become q sort OF necessity
of public life. as he has himself. His
CHEEKY optimism is tonic to duh livers,
whether we meet it there in print or
beaming across dlnner-tnble, lot IL
is the optimism, not of gushing en-
thusiast-or, az he might cav him.
self, of "slushy philantbroplst -
but Of an able and se-hardened man-ot-
the-world, who has no illusions. and who
gives himself 10 pragmatical alrs. Ihls
fortunate temperament has enabled I. +.
TO live down all the preudces which he
had against him when he started: In the
House he is now as popular with his OPP
moments az he 10 with his friends; and his
friends inside and outside Of Parliament
have become legion. Evon NJ lunch, who
was not too kindly minded when he first
immortalized him as Iay Pay" has
taken him to his bosom. IL would be as
hard now TO imagine our House OF Com
mons md our press without their lay
( Pay" a. it would be to conceive them
/ without their Labby.
ABLE AND SINCERE.
I Mr.. OConnor has. IN fact. grown upon
us. We have found that there is more in
him. both as politician and as journslist,
/ than at first we were perhaps inclined 10
( believe. He ia both able and sincere, with
not more of the personal equation in his
motive force than seems necessary
part Of the machinery of all success
/ ful politicians. His sympathieJ are
genuinely democratic. His impulses
are generous, and, on the whole.
sound and bis energies are something
/ phenomenal. A good deal might be
| said Of him as politician. and as an Eng
| lish az distinguished from an Irish politi-
clan. He has done good work, az well as
! hard and tIreless work, both with
hs voice and his pen. With his found
Ing OF the Star bis was certainly
the first big trumpet blast TO awaken
the dormant Liberalism of London. But
| his politics do not concern US here.
We have TO deal with him manly as lite
rary man. and IN that capacity he IS sufh-
GENTLY interesting. Mr.. O'Connor passes
in the common opinion rs par excellence the
/ facile Journalistic man who can reel you
! of Yards Of brilliant diction on almost
any SUBJECT at moments notice. without
thinking or pausing-and that, no doubt,
he IS. But this facility generally implies
the idea Of shallowness and SUI
pcrfciality, and it oftener than
not tlOurishes on in imperfectly-cul-
uyated soil. II would DO a great mis-
take 10 deduce notion OF superiiciality
from tho copious elOquence of L. p. As q
matter of fact, he IS both vigorous
thinker in politics and literature. O critic
of lucid judgment. and man OF ripe and
wide culture, grounded upon sound edu-
cation. Before he embarked on the hard
ships o. that struggle in the humber
! ranks OF journalism, of which he IS so
PLEASANTLY proud. he had had the inesti-
mable advantage of q university train
ing, and his college career was dlstin-
gulshed. He took several schoiarshios,
one O. The highest OF postgraduate prizes,
and he became an u. A. OF the Queens
University. With this he has been endow-
r -, IN lac fffff =
q sngularly impressionable organization
and talent for recording his Impressions
with instant and vivid force; sensitive
ness 10 the dramatic issues and the hidden
meanings of q situations an insight into
| character--not always true, perhaps. but
! variably interesting; and fertile brain
! for ideas generally OF the order the French
call prime sduter.
LITERARY ADVICE.
! II is amusing to see the advice he some
times gives in his per-apparently in all
/ sincerity--to aspiring journalists who
write 70 him asking how they NAV become
T. P.'s. lie warns them against initiating
those unhappy creatures who are so
afraid of not being exactly correct IN every
syllable as to stand shiyering on tho brink
! of a sentence AN expression. by the way,
/ cu1iously like something NJ. lola said the
other day about his own literary methods.
write whenever and wherever you can,
saws T. p, land always write IN a hurry"
This may be good advice for man
who has not only plenty of ideas, but who
has these always ready, and who has an
unhesitating command of language; and
IN L. P's own case the method, no doubt,
results in giving his writing that sense OF
palptatlng actually which Is ITS chlet
charm. but T. =. in bestowng this cOun-
sci forgets that ne is an exceptional mau.
10 he 49, .. iTDf nd Tnu n
as others have before beginning TO write.
We believe he can sit down at d typewriter
any hour Of the day or night and IN any
place and rattle of most excellent copy
as fast as Paderewski might play the piano.
PLEASANT SOUNDS.
There is no sound. be says, so pleasant
TO his ears while he is at work as the whlrr
of machinery coming up to him from the
printing-roOm of a Dewspaper-oftice. lie
Is. in truth. journalist born, not made 1t
- his methods. nevertheless. which betray
him into his chief literary fauit-a sort OF
exuberant carelessness which would shake
the nerves of precisIan. Only a style
with remarkable vitality in II could sur
vive such treatment without degenerating
INTO mere slapdash. Instead OF degene-
rating Mr.. O'Connor's English strikes US
as being now melloYer and Irmer than 1t
used to be. Some OF his Book OF the
" eek ~ reviews III aus UtfNtV sun ut y Lhhi-
VellOusly-well written. IN these, by the
way, which have been so attractive fea-
ture OF his paper. he has de-
veloped a form of criticism entire
ly bis own-unaffected, unpedanuo,
almost unliterary. Just the frank talk
Of u cultured man. of-the-world chat
ting with friend about the last new book.
And vet from those deqa3e conversations
there often fash remarks which the most
perspicuous OF autoritaire" critics might
envy. We remember, for recent exam
pic. summing up of Mr.. Henry James's
style, which is about the happiest word on
that subtle matter We have yet seen.
wHrREls HE is PRE-EMISENT.
1t is, however, as q parliamentary chro-
niQ,,c,p- that t. +. Is pre-emlnent. 10 has
been we'll remarked that the difference be-
tween him and other DISORDERS or parlla-
mentary scenes is that he seems TO de-
scribe from within, while the others write
simply from the outside.
Perhaps He Swore.