The Irish standard., 1902-03-01

clutch at straws, and the United
Irishmen seeing the ship of Irish
state about to founder, threw them
selves into an alliance with the First
Consul. They lived to regret their
dealings with the most selfish and
treacherous Of men, who used them for
his purposes and abandoned them to
their fate. BUT their motives were
sincere and patriotic, and though the
year of 179S brought destruction upon
their society and horrid disaster upon
thousands of the Irish peasantry, yet
history deals tenderly with them be-
cause of their disinterestedness their
tender love for their country, and the
desperate state into which the latter
was falling. tits true the connection
with France reused the fiercest wrath
of England and had much to do with
the awful vengeance that she per-
mitted herself; yet it remains also
true that they had at one time we'll
founded hopes of success, and that
they We're not guilty of so great a
want of foresight as they have been
reproached with.
The public reprisals of the govern
ment ended with the Imprisonment,
and later with the exile of the chief
leaders, prominent among whom was
Thomas Adds, the brother of Robert
Emmett. In the fall of 1902 the two
brothers met on the continent, where
the eXiles of 1898 were organizing a
last effort to effect the independence
of the Green Isle.
From the society of the exiles and
the continental diplomats Robert EN-
met returned glowing with enthu-
siasm, filled with hope, and employed
the first six months of 1903 in setting
on foot last army Of resistance to the
English conqueror. He threw into
the movement indomitable energy and
persistent vigor. He was omnipres-
ent, and by DISCOURSE example and
writing reused again the dropping
spirits Of those men who found the
irons of slavery worse than the fet-
,!Grs of the grave, death itself and the
humiliation of the nation preferable
to the cup of humiliation that the
statesmen of England were mixing
for the sster-land. With incredible
ingenuity and boldness he began to
construct weapons and ammunition of
war, and the student of his life is
filed with pathetic admiration as he
sees this youth rousing the last faint
hopes of a dying nationality under the
shadow Of the Castle, and single
handed, preparing to cope with a
power that even the Little Corsican
was. letting safely alone. A visionary,
an enthusiast! some will say. BE it
so, but seer of splendid visions and
dreamer of high and holy things, a
man who threw his soul into the fu-
ture and communcd with justice and
right-and walked with the sublime
and purified spirits of all ages, and
planned to make his country the
theater on which such examples of
virtue should be common, and hui
manity be free to rise according to the
native impulses of time and occasion.
A visionary and an enthusiast! Yes,
but of the stripe Of Washington at
Valley Forge, man in whom enthu-
sias;n was habit, made up Of those
three things which Lambartine calls
faith, love and character. I'm these
three things" says Il modern orator,
1--WE find common quality-internal
liberty, freedom from oil that Is for
eign to the actual task, more than
voluntary abnegation, something spon-
taneous and natural. The man who Is
filed with such enthusiasm has
reached that plane Of Independence on
which he can move as hero or Il
martyr. He may meet difficulties, but
he will break them down; he may die
but dying he will triumph. He will
show that degree Of perseverance
which makes Of patience sublime
virtue. Emotion, sweeping but transit
tory in ordinary men, becomes in him
something stable and tranquil. He
moves in the. world like the sun, an
ever open source of light, heat, pro-
duction and life"
Such an enthusiast was Robert En-
met, in whose heart the love Of Ireland
burned pure and serene as the vestaPs
fame, fed from the well-springs Of
reading, converse, meditation, and
that steady communion with the
patriot spirits of the past which is the
infallible source of the highest love
and devotion. Some historians main
tain that there are masculine and
feminine centuries, masculine and
feminine nations; certain it is that
there are periods of history when men
are keenly alive to all ideals and easily
moved by every enthusiasm, receptive
and sympathetic ages in which, as the
poet says,
zone man with dream ut pleasure
Shall go forth and conquer a crown,
And three with new songs measure
Shall trample a kingdom down."
Robert Emmett lived in an age Of
enthusiasms, misdirected at times If