They have this to urge, indeed, that failure to make oneself understood is commonly regarded as a sign of the superior mind.

Lord Rosebery, for example, has told us that he himself, for all his honey-dropping tongue, has never been properly understood.

And Hegel, the great German philosopher, who was so great a philosopher that we may without impropriety mention his name even in the brilliant vicinage of the Earl of Midlothian, used to sigh: "Alas! in the whole of my teaching career I had but one student who understood my system, and he mis-understood it." This is all very well in its way, and a climate of incomprehension may suit orators and metaphysicians admirably; but it will not do for politics.

The party or people that fails to make its programme understood is politically incompetent, and Ireland is assuredly safe from any such imputation.

She has her spiritual secrets, buried deep in what we may call the subliminal consciousness of the race, and to the disclosure of these secrets we may look with confidence for the inspiration of a new literature.