The Irish standard., 1896-10-03

TalUl LlaL WOulQ De ldnL dSlctp uAsiA Ao"AAs
and that then l would be able to rise as re-
freshed as if were leading the regular life
of the city clerk who goes to rest at lO
o'clock and gets up at a reasonable hour Of
the morning. Ah!the happy days when we
were miserable, as Justin Mccarthy says In
one of his novels / naturally recall his
name at the period of which l am speaking
He and I at that period lived in the West
minister Palace Hotel, largely because 1t
! was so near the House Of Commons, where
| at the time we spent the greater part or
every day. There is nothing more delight
| full in the charming and beautiful person.
ality of Mr.. Mccarthy than the incurable
vein of romance which not time, nor drudg-
cry, nor many hard blow has ever in the
least destroyed. In those days remember
still how, after all the hardness and conflict,
and sometimes squalor Of the night In the
House Of Commons, he and would stop to
drink in the beauty Of Westminster Abbey
in the aurora light Of the morning; and
| how, after we got to his sitting-room, we
would sit up for hours-till or o'clock In
the morning -discours.ng ON all things-of
books, Of men, now and then OF some beall-
tiful figure that occasionally came athwart
the sombreness Of our lives-of the pass
ages in our own careers. from the days when
we started as shorthand writers to those in
which we were taking modest part in a
great historical struggle.
To these days belong my vision of The
O'Gorman at his fine moments, but not aid
| his finest. The finest moment was his
death-bed remember the night when DR..
McDonnell-noW a colleague Of mine in the
| House of COmmons-brought me the news
that The O'Gorman was seriously Ill, and
that ne wanted to see me. l went to the
curious anu quiet lodging in Sydney street,
Fllham, where the once lord of broad Irish
acres had spent his last years. Everybody
who knows the darker side of London life
knows this little street that runs be-
| tween Fulham road and Kings road,
Chelsea. Quiet, bourgeois, even sombre In
its outward aspect, it used to be, in the days
of the Cremorne Gardens and the Argyll
| Rooms, noisy, garish, and even Vicious
street. I do not know whether it has re-
formed in our modern days; but this was it's
repute in the London 1 knew as youth.
remeber a tale Of the early days of Ade-
laide Nilson--but that is another story.
Here in this typical and sombre London
street it was that one of the great historic
and almost mythical figures of Irish life was
dying.
The O'Gorman lived in two rooms on the
ground floor, or what, in lodging house vo-
cabulary, IS known as the paElor- floor. The
rooms were small, neat, plainly furnished
just the kind of rooms where youth in its
careless impecuniosity and extreme old
age, without wife, and child, and fortune,
are accustomed to find themselves. On g.
small bed-such as an Old soldier might
chc ose-I found the old chieftain. If had
expected to find a'death-bed with ordinary
| surroundings of pain, regrets, affrighted
anticipation, was soon shown my mistake.
| It was almost Ike entering a smoking
room of the House Of Commons in the
| splendid days when we were all united,
and were the greatest fighting machine the
House Of Commons has ever perhaps, seen.
| There was bottle Of good old port beside
the bed, and syphon Of soda. The old
| chieftain, as have said, had none of that
wild and brutal love of drinking that be-
longed to the squires of the Union period; !;
but he loved his glass. Suffering now and
then from a sting of pain, and being in what
| 1 might almost call a convival mood, he
was helped now and then to glass of port
| in tumbler of seltzer. s.
| The O,Gorbman Mahon, like many old
men, lived much more in the past than in
! the present. The great days of O'Conrell
| were still more present to him across forty
years than the events of the preceding year
or the immediate hour. One curious and
! comic example of his occasional failure to
| appreciate the moment was an encounter he
! had with Mr.. Chamberlain. It was in 1880
II am not sure that it was not in 1881. 81
met a young fellow" said The O'Gorman--
Mr. Chamberlain at that time was some
| forty-fve years OF age Chamberlain he
said 81 believe is his name; and asked
| him how he was getting on. He told me
he was in the cabinet; j didn't know any
thing about it, by e.. sir. And said: I'm
| Id glad, my young fellow, It was even
more like this when the old chief lay dying.
| He spoke, it is true, of the events Of the
hour--the great split, it will be Temem-
bered, had just begun--but he spoke 81
| him in the language of the day of O'COn-
nell. How could Parnell expect to win
asked the old warrior, expect. to win when
heahad the hierarchy and the 5clergymen of
Ireland against him pa full favored
method OF speaking Of the bishops and
priests which was essentially Of The O'Gor-
man epoch.
| 1t was great death-bed.. The old boy
laughed, joked, smiled grimly with his
| fierce nlustache, and faced death as gailY,
and almost as unconscio ously, as he looked
down the throat of a pistol. The doctor,
says" he remarked that I'm going to die
simply because I'm ninety years Of age
and then he gave deep noted but amused
| groWl that showed the extraord dinary vital
ity and bravery Of the old lion. More ex-
| traordinary than anything shown III this,
solemn hour, he retained the full blown,
broad style Of the Irish gentleman Of the
beginning Of the century. Nearly every
second word was what on other lips would
BIZ pronuounced an oath, but on his became
1:e,.