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WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
405

dow-breakers, and I read in the morning papers that many have been wounded; some two hundred heads have been dressed at the hospitals; an old woman has been killed by baton blows, and that two thousand pounds' worth of decorated plate-glass windows have been broken. I count the links in the chain of responsibility, run them across my fingers, and wonder if any link there is from my workshop.


Queen Victoria visits the city, and Dublin Unionists have gathered together from all Ireland some twelve thousand children and built for them a grandstand, and bought them sweets and buns that they may cheer. A week later Maud Gonne marches forty thousand children through the streets of Dublin, and in a field beyond Drumcondra, and in the presence of a Priest of their Church, they swear to cherish towards England until the freedom of Ireland has been won, an undying enmity. How many of these children will carry bomb or rifle when a little under or a little over thirty?


Feeling is still running high between the Dublin and London organizations, for a London Doctor, my fellow-delegate, has called a little after breakfast to say he was condemned to death by a certain secret society the night before. He is very angry, though it does not seem that his life is in danger, for the insult is beyond endurance.


We arrive at Chancery Lane for our committee meeting, but it is Derby Day, and certain men who have arranged a boxing match are in possession of our rooms. We adjourn to a neighbouring public-house where there are little panelled cubicles as in an old-fashioned eating-house, that we may direct the secretary how to answer that week's letters. We are much interrupted by a Committee-man who has been to the Derby, and now half lying on the table keeps repeating "I know what you all think. Let us hand on the torch, you think, let us hand it on to our children, but I say no! I say, let us order an immediate rising."

Presently one of the boxers arrives, sent up to apologize it seems, and to explain that we had not been recognized. He begins his apology, but stops, and for a moment fixes upon us an eye full of our demerits. "No I will not," he cries "What do I care for any one now but Venus and Adonis and the other Planets of Heaven."