The partially murdered person may even think an assault unlikely to recur; but it is asking too much, perhaps, to expect him to find it impossible to imagine.

And even if, as God grant, the predominant partner is really sorry for his former manner of predominating, and proves it in some unmistakable manner--as by saving the other from robbers at great personal risk--the victim may still be unable to repress an abstract psychological wonder about when his companion first began to feel like that.

Now this is not in the least an exaggerated parable of the position of England towards Ireland, not only in '98, but far back from the treason that broke the Treaty of Limerick and far onwards through the Great Famine and after.

The conduct of the English towards the Irish after the Rebellion was quite simply the conduct of one man who traps and binds another, and then calmly cuts him about with a knife.

The conduct during the Famine was quite simply the conduct of the first man if he entertained the later moments of the second man, by remarking in a chatty manner on the very hopeful chances of his bleeding to death.