It was easy to perceive that the arguments he used were not of his own devising; they had been supplied by others, in whose opinion he had confidence; and though valueless and weak in reality, to him they were all-convincing and unanswerable,--not the less, perhaps, that they offered that value to self-love which comes from attributing any evils we endure to causes outside and independent of ourselves. These, confronted with extravagant hopes of what would ensue should national independence be established, formed his code; and however refuted on each point, a certain conviction, too deeply laid to be disturbed by any opposing force, remained; and in his “Well, well, God knows best! and maybe we'll have better luck yet,” you could perceive that he was inaccessible to any appeal except from the quarter which ministered to his discontent and disaffection. One thing was clear to me from all he said, that if the spirit of open resistance no longer existed towards England, it was replaced by as determined and as rancorous hatred,--a brooding, ill-omened dislike had succeeded, to the full as hostile, and far less easily subdued. How it would end,--whether in the long-lingering fear which wastes the energies and saps the strength of a people, or in the conflict of a civil war, the prospect was equally ruinous. Sadly pondering on these things, I parted with my humble host, and set out towards the capital. If my conversation with the Irishman had taught me somewhat of the state of feeling then current in Ireland, it also conveyed another and very different lesson; it enabled me to take some account of the change years had effected in my own sentiments. As a boy, high-flown, vague, and unsettled ideas of national liberty and independence had made me look to France as the emancipator of Europe. As a man, I knew that the lust of conquest had extinguished the love of freedom in Frenchmen; that they who trusted to her did but exchange the dominion of their old masters for the tyranny of a new one; while such as boldly stepped forward in defence of their liberties, found that there was neither mercy nor compassion for the conquered. I had seen the Austrian prisoners and the Russian led captive through the streets of Paris; I had witnessed the great capital of Prussia in its day of mourning after Jena; and all my idolatry for the General scarce balanced my horror of the Emperor, whose vengeance had smitten two nations thus heavily: and I said within my heart, “May my countrymen, whatever be their day of need, never seek alliance with despotic France!” CHAPTER XXXIV. A CHARACTER OF OLD DUBLIN