If he went wrong at any time, he went wrong by too generous a judgment of other men, too open-handed a policy.  Perhaps, too, he may have erred—­it was his characteristic defect—­in not pressing his policy upon others with more vehemence.  He had not the temperament which, when once possessed with an idea, rests neither night nor day in pursuit of it and spares neither others’ labour nor its own to carry the conception into effect.  There was an element of inertia in his nature, and of the ordinary self-seeking motives which impel men not a trace.  Ambition he had none—­none, at all events, in the last ten or fifteen years, during which I have known him.  As for vanity, I never saw a man so entirely devoid of it.  His modesty amounted to a defect, in that he always underestimated his personal influence.  A man less single-minded, vainer, more ambitious of success, might with the same gifts have achieved more for Ireland in thrusting towards a personal triumph.  A man with more love for the homage of crowds might have kept himself in closer touch with the mass of his following.

The way of life to which he was committed was in its essence distasteful to him.  I do not believe that history shows an example of a statesman who served his country more absolutely from a sense of duty.

All this might be admitted without conceding greatness to him.  But he was a great man, unlike others, cast in a mould of his own.  Without the least affectation of unconventionality, and indeed under a formal appearance, he was profoundly unconventional.  His tastes, whether in literature, in art, in the choice of society, in the choice of his way of life, were utterly his own, unaffected by any standard but that which he himself established.  Without subtlety of interpretation, his judgments cut deep into the heart of things.  You could not hear him speak, could not be in his presence, without feeling the weight of his personality.

A statesman, if ever there was one, he was never given the opportunity of proving himself in administration; he can be judged only by his gifts in counsel and by his power of guiding action.  As a counsellor, he was supreme.  He had that faculty for anticipating the future, that broad, far-reaching vision of the chain of events which can proceed only from long, deep and constant thought, and which is truly admirable when united, as it was in him, to a sovereign contempt for this or that momentary outcry.  In these qualities of insight and foresight I have only seen one man approach him, the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, to whose credit stands the greatest work of Imperial reconciliation accomplished in our day.  But Redmond had supremely what the wise old Scotsman lacked—­the gift of persuasive speech, to win acceptance for his wisdom and his vision.

He could persuade, but he could not compel.  His was not the magnetism which constrains allegiance almost in despite of reason—­the power which was possessed by his first and only leader, Parnell.  Redmond’s appeal was to men’s judgment and convictions, not to those instincts which lie deepest and most potent in the heart of man.  That was the limitation to his greatness.  He could lead only by convincing men that he was right.