Parnell was not in the least a well-read man. His genius was natural and unaided; he was a maker of history, not a reader of it. He took no interest in literature as such, but for works on subjects interesting to him--mining, mechanics, or engineering and (later) astronomy--he {307} had an insatiable appetite and such a tremendous power of concentration that he absolutely absorbed knowledge where he chose. I have known him to argue some intricate and technical point of engineering with a man of thirty years' practical experience (in America and India), who at length admitted Parnell to be right and himself mistaken, though on this particular point Parnell's deductions were made from a two hours' study of the subject some three years or more before. For pictures he cared not at all, and music he absolutely disliked; though to amuse me he would sometimes "sing," in a soft undertone and with much gravity, funny little nursery rhymes and snatches of the songs of his college days. His dislike of social life was so great that he would never accept any invitation that could be in any way avoided; and if sometimes I absolutely insisted upon his going to any reception or dinner party, he would go with the grim determination of one fulfilling a most unpleasant duty. He often told me that it was because he hated "Saxons" (a hatred which years of tradition had fostered) so much, and felt ill at ease in any gathering of English people. He certainly did not feel this with the working classes, with whom he would constantly converse and watch at work when we were out together. Agricultural labourers did not interest him so much, but he used to spend hours talking to mechanics of all classes, seamen, road-menders, builders, and any and every kind of artisan. To these he always spoke in an easy, friendly way of their work, their wages, and the conditions of labour, and I never remarked that suspiciousness and reserve, characteristic of the English wageworker, in these men when Parnell talked {308} with them. They seemed to accept him, not as one of themselves, but as an interesting and an interested "labour leader," who had the unusual merit of wishing to hear their views instead of offering them his own. Parnell was intensely superstitious, with all the superstition of the Irish peasant, and in this he was unreasoning and unreasonable. This trait was evidently acquired in earliest childhood and had grown with his growth, for some of these superstitions are the heritage of ages in the Irish people, and have their origin in some perfectly natural fear, or association, that has, generation by generation, by alteration of habit or circumstance, lost its force while retaining, or even adding to, its expression.