woman there in the sunshine, bent down in the grass, utterly alone, till the lark, sweeping heavenward in song, seems to give a message of gentle comfort from her husband’s watching spirit.  Our emotion now is of no enervating order.  We are proud of our land and her people; our nerves are firm and set; our hearts cry out for action; we are not weeping, but burning for the Cause.  How little we know of this heroic woman.  We are in some ways familiar with Tone, his high character, his genial open nature, his daring, his patience, his farsightedness, his judgment—­in spirit tireless and indomitable:  a man peerless among his fellows.  But he had yet one compeer; there was one nature that matched his to depth and height of its greatness—­that nature was a woman’s, and the woman was Wolfe Tone’s wife.

VI

It is well this heroic example of our womanhood should be before not only our womanhood but our manhood.  It should show us all that patriotism does not destroy the finer feelings, but rather calls them forth and gives them wider play.  We have been too used to thinking that the qualities of love and tenderness are no virtues for a soldier, that they will sap his resolution and destroy his work; but our movements fail always when they fail to be human.  Until we mature and the poetry in life is wakening, we are ready to act by a theory; but when Nature asserts herself the hard theorist fails to hold us.  Let us remember and be human.  We have been saying in effect, if not in so many words:  “For Ireland’s sake, don’t fall in love”—­we might as well say:  “For Ireland’s sake, don’t let your blood circulate.”  It is impossible—­even if it were possible it would be hateful.  The man and woman have a great and beautiful destiny to fulfil together:  to substitute for it an unnatural way of life that can claim neither the seclusion of the cloister nor the dominion of the world is neither beautiful nor great.  We have cause for gratitude in the example before us.  The woman can learn from it how she may equal the bravest man; and the man should learn to let his wife and children suffer rather than make of them willing slaves and cowards.  For there are some earnest men who are ready to suffer themselves but cannot endure the suffering of those they love, and a mistaken family tenderness binds and drags them down.  No one, surely, can hold it better to carefully put away every duty that may entail hardship on wife and child, for then the wife is, instead of a comrade, a burden, and the child becomes a degenerate creature, creeping between heaven and earth, afraid to hold his head erect, and unable to fulfil his duty to God or man.  Let no man be afraid that those he loves may be tried in the fire; but let him, to the best of his strength, show them how to stand the ordeal, and then trust to the greatness of the Truth and the virtue of a loyal nature to bring each one forth in triumph, and he and they may have in the issue undreamed of recompense.  For the battle that tries them will discover finer chords not yet touched in their intercourse; finer sympathies, susceptibilities, gentleness and strength; a deeper insight into life and a wider outlook on the world, making in fine a wonderful blend of wisdom, tenderness and courage that gives them to realise that life, with all its faults, struggles, and pain is still and for ever great and beautiful.