Even to his countrymen he could on occasion be disdainful, expecting them to defer to his own judgment of his own course. He would sometimes remain away from Parliament for weeks together, although important business might be under consideration, perhaps would vanish altogether from public ken. Yet this lordly attitude and the air of mystery which surrounded him did not seem to be studied with a view to effect. They were due to his habit of thinking first and chiefly of himself. If he desired to indulge his inclinations, he indulged them. Some extremely strong motive of passion or interest might interpose to restrain this desire and stimulate him to an unwelcome exertion; but no respect for the opinion of others, nor fear of censure from his allies or friends, would be allowed to do so.
This boundless self-confidence and independence greatly contributed to his success as a leader. His faith in his star inspired a conviction that obstacles whose reality his judgment recognised would ultimately yield to his will, and gave him in moments of crisis an undismayed fortitude which only once forsook him--in the panic which was suddenly created by the Phoenix Park murders of May 1882. The confidence which he felt, or appeared to feel, reacted upon his party, and became a chief ground of their obedience to him and their belief in his superior wisdom. His calmness, his tenacity, his patience, his habit of listening quietly to every one, but deciding for himself, were all evidences of that resolute will which imposed itself upon the Irish masses no less than upon his Parliamentary following, and secured for him a loyalty in which there was little or nothing of personal affection.
In these several respects his overweening pride was a source of strength. In another direction, however, it proved a source of weakness. There are men in whom the want of moral principle, of noble emotions, or of a scrupulous conscience and nice sense of honour, is partly replaced by deference to the opinion of their class or of the world. Such men may hold through life a tolerably upright course, neither from the love of virtue nor because they are ambitious and anxious to stand well with those whom they aspire to influence or rule, but because, having a sense of personal dignity, combined with a perception of what pleases or offends mankind, they are resolved to do nothing whereby their good name can be tarnished or an opening given to malicious tongues. But when pride towers to such a height as to become a law to itself, disregarding the judgment of others, it may not only lead its possessor into an attitude of defiance which the world resents, but may make him stoop to acts of turpitude which discredit his character. Mr. Parnell was certainly not a scrupulous man. Without dwelling upon the circumstances attending the divorce case already referred to, or upon his betrayal of Mr. Gladstone's confidences, and his reckless appeals during the last year of his life to the most inflammable elements in Ireland, there are facts enough in his earlier career to show that he had little regard for truth and little horror for crime. A revolution may extenuate some sins, but even in a revolution there are men (and sometimes the strongest men) whose moral excellence shines through the smoke of conflict and the mists of detraction. In Mr. Parnell's nature the moral element was imperfectly developed. He seemed cynical and callous; and it was probably his haughty self-reliance which prevented him from sufficiently deferring to the ordinary moralities of mankind. His pride, which ought to have kept him free from the suspicion of dishonour, made him feel himself dispensed from the usual restraints. Whatever he did was right in his own eyes, and no other eyes need be regarded. Phenomena somewhat similar were observable in Napoleon. But Napoleon, though he came of a good family, was obviously not a gentleman in the common sense of the term. Mr. Parnell was a gentleman in that sense. He had the bearing, the manners, the natural easy dignity of a man of birth who has always moved in good society. He rarely permitted any one to take liberties with him, even the innocent liberties of familiar intercourse. This made his departures from what may be called the inner and higher standard of gentlemanly conduct all the more remarkable.