“It would be difficult at any time to convey in the deadness of language an adequate sense of the courage, vitality, superabundant faith, and self-ignoring manliness which were the characteristic things we associated with Francis Sheehy-Skeffington. To me, writing amidst the rumour of camps, the task is impossible. There are clouds that will never lift. “He was to me the good comrade of many hopes, and though the ways of this scurvy and disastrous world led us apart, he remained to me an inextinguishable flame. This ‘agitator,’ this ‘public menace,’ this ‘disturber’ was wholly emancipated from egotism, and incapable of personal hatred. He was a man who had ranged the whole world of ideas, and rather than my own words I would use those of the great whom we agreed in admiring. I could style him with Guyau-- ‘Droit comme un rayon de lumière, Et, comme lui, vibrant et chaud;--’ “or put in his mouth the proud and humble faith of Robert Buchanan-- ‘Never to bow or kneel To any brazen lie; To love the worst, to feel The worst is even as I. To count all triumph vain That helps no burdened man; I think so still and so I end as I began.’ “But in truth there is no phrase of any of his torchbearers that does not win new life from association with him. Strangest of all, he, who turned away from soldiers, left to all soldiers an example of courage in death to which there are not many parallels. This brave and honourable man died to the rattle of musketry; his name will be recalled to the ruffle of drums.” Easter week, too, had been for him a harrowing and terrible experience. MacDonagh, who was shot, was a fellow-professor at the College, as was also MacNeill, in whose favour he gave evidence at the court-martial. Pearse, the leader, was a friend of many years. With the rebellion he had no sympathy--indeed it made him furious. He used to say bitterly that they had spoiled it all--spoiled his dream of a free united Ireland in a free Europe. But what really seared his heart was the fearful retribution that fell on the leaders of the rebellion. When Beaumarchais’s play, _The Marriage of Figaro_, was produced, it created a furore. The author’s cynical comment was that the only thing madder than the play was its success. So it might be said that the only thing madder than the insurrection was the manner of its suppression. Two wrongs do not make a right, nor do two follies make common sense. We in Ireland had the right, if not the precedent, to expect as fair treatment as was meted out by Botha to rebels in South Africa. My husband felt after the disasters of Easter week more than ever committed to the attitude he had taken up. He brought pressure to bear that he might be sent immediately to the front. On the 14th of July, 1916, he sailed for France.