The decisive thing which drove most of the relatively small number among the Volunteers who broke away from Redmond into their original hostility was Government’s failure to recognize them.  Their force stood in their own eyes for the assertion of Ireland’s nationality; and many of those who took active part in the rebellion were at the outset fully prepared to assert that nationality in jeopardy of their lives in the Allied cause.  Redmond’s policy, had effect been given to it by the Government, still more had he himself been invested with the right to embody it in action, would have prevented the estrangement of all but a very few.  Once the estrangement took place, however, I think that he undervalued what was opposed to him, both in respect of its power and of its quality.  He lacked appreciation and respect for the idealists whose ideals were not his own.  He underrated their sincerity, and the danger of their sincerity.  The beauty of sacrifice in the young men who went out to the war, carrying Ireland’s cause in their keeping, moved him profoundly; and he saw the practical bearing of their acts on the great practical problem of statesmanship to which his life had been given.  He did not guess at the sway which might be exercised over men’s minds by an almost mystical belief which disdained to count with practicalities, Redmond for fifteen years had been the leader, and for thirty-five years had been a member, of a party which presented itself—­with great justification—­as the winner for Ireland of many positive material advantages on the way to an ultimate goal.  Pearse, at a time when all the world was plunged in a prodigal welter of destruction, came forward, demanding from Irishmen nothing but a sacrifice—­promising nothing but the chance for young men to shed their blood sacramentally in the cause of Ireland’s freedom.  Redmond also was calling for the extreme risk, but on a sane and sound calculation, to ensure the full development of something already gained.  Pearse preached, mystically, the efficacious power simply of blood shed in the name of Ireland.  Those whom he brought with him into the pass of danger were few, but they were touched with his own spirit; and even the very recklessness of their act touched the popular imagination.  Irish regiments, after all, could do only what other regiments were doing; their deeds were obscured in a chaos of war from which individual prowess could not emerge.  Pearse and his associates offered to Irishmen a stage for themselves on which they could and did secure full personal recognition—­the complete attention of Ireland’s mind.

All this would have seemed vanity to Redmond’s solid, positive intelligence—­vanity in all senses of the word.  It would have moved him to nothing but angry contempt—­anger against the spirit which was prepared to divide Ireland’s effort, contempt for the futility of the reasoning.  But one aspect of the rising dominated all the others in his mind.  He had neither tolerance nor pity