It may excite surprise that a man such as has been sketched, with so cool a judgment and so complete a self-control, a man (as his previous career had shown) able to endure temporary reverses in the confidence of ultimate success, should have committed the fatal error, which blasted his fame and shortened his life, of clinging to the headship of his party when prudence prescribed retirement. When he sought the advice of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, retirement for a time was the counsel he received. His absence need not have been of long duration. Had he, after the sentence of the Divorce Court in November 1890, gone abroad for eight or ten months, allowing some one to be chosen in his place chairman of the Irish party for the session, he might thereafter have returned to the House of Commons, and would doubtless, after a short lapse of time, have naturally recovered the leadership. No one else could have resisted his claims. Unfortunately, the self-reliant pride which had many a time stood him in good stead, made him refuse to bow to the storm. Probably he could not understand the indignation which the proceedings in the divorce case had awakened in England, being morally somewhat callous, and knowing that his offence had been no secret to many persons in the House of Commons. He had been accustomed to despise English opinion, and had on former occasions suffered little for doing so. He bitterly resented both Mr. Gladstone's letter and the movement to depose him which it roused in his own party. Having often before found defiant resolution lead to success, he determined again to rely on the maxim which has beguiled so many to ruin, just because it has so much truth in it--"_De l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace._" The affront to his pride disturbed the balance of his mind, and made him feel as if even a temporary humiliation would destroy the prestige that had been won by his haughty self-confidence. It was soon evident that he had overestimated his power in Ireland, but when the schism began there were many besides Lord Salisbury--many in Ireland as well as in England--who predicted triumph for him. Nor must it be thought that it was pure selfishness which made him resolve rather to break with the English Liberals than allow the Nationalist bark to be steered by any hands but his own. He was a fatalist, and had that confidence in his star and his mission which is often characteristic of minds in which superstition--for he was superstitious--and a certain morbid taint may be discerned. There were others who believed that no one but himself could hold the Irish party together and carry the Irish cause to triumph. No wonder that this belief should have filled and perhaps disordered his own brain.