John Morley: “Assuredly not,” he replied: “in 1882 Ireland seemed to be literally a society on the eve of dissolution.”

A rendering less apt for this occasion finds favour with some scholars, that true virtue can never be restored to those who have once fallen away from it.

If they, situated exactly as we are, decline to join, we are not bound single-handed to make up the deficiencies of the rest.

For this line of contention he was called an “unpatriotic trumpet of disaster,” and other names commonly bestowed on all men in all countries who venture to say that what chances for the hour to be a popular war is a blunder.

True merit once resigned, No trick nor feint will serve as well.