“_January 31st_, 1905.--Will is to stand for East Leeds. It is all very sudden. Liberals so eager that he has almost been (courteously) hustled into the great enterprise. Herbert Gladstone, Campbell-Bannerman and other leaders have written almost irresistible letters to him, pleading. When he goes to the election at Leeds he is to be ‘put to no expense whatever,’ and they are confident of a ‘handsome majority.’ We shall see! Besides all this he is given a most momentous commission at the War Office to investigate certain ugly-looking matters connected with the Boer War stores scandal that require clearing up. I am glad they have done him the ‘poetical justice’ of selecting him for this.
“_February 13th_.--We went to a very brilliant and (to me) novel gathering at the Campbell-Bannermans’. All the leaders of the Liberal Party there, an interesting if not very noble study. All so cordial to Will. Tremendous crush, but nice when we got down to the more airy tea room. The snatches of conversation I got in the general hubbub all sounded somewhat ‘shoppy.’ Winston Churchill, a ruddy young man, with a roguish twinkle in his eye, Herbert Gladstone and his lovely wife, our bluff, rosy host and other ‘leaders’ were very interesting, and we met many friends, all on the ‘congratulate.’ All these M.P.’s seem to relish their life. I suppose it _has_ a great fascination, this working to get your side in, as at a football match.”
The general election in course of time swept over England and brought in the Liberal Party with an overwhelming majority. My husband did not stand for East Leeds. He had to abandon the idea, as a Catholic, on account of the religious difficulties connected with the Education Act.
Our life in the glorious west of Ireland, which followed our retirement from Devonport, has been so fully described by this pen of mine in “From Sketch-book and Diary” that I give but a slight sketch of it here. Those were days when one could give one’s whole heart, so to speak, to Erin, before the dreadful cloud had fallen on her which, as I write, has lent her her present forbidding gloom. That will pass, please God!
To come straight through from London and its noise and superfluous fuss and turmoil into the absolute peace and purity of County Mayo in perfect summer weather was such a relief to mind and body that one felt it as an emancipation. Health, good sleep, enjoyment of pure air and noble scenery; kindly, unsophisticated peasantry--all these things were there, and the flocks and herds and the sea birds. In the midst of all that appealing poetry, so peculiar to Ireland, I had a funny object lesson of a prosaic kind at romantic Mulranny, on Clewe Bay. In the little station I saw a big heap in sackcloth lying on the platform--“_Hog-product from Chicago_”--and the country able to “cure” the matchless Irish pig! I went on to get some darning wool in the hamlet--“_Made in England_”--and all those sheep around us! Outside the shop door a horse had the usual big nose-bag--_”Made in Austria”!_ All these things, with a little energy, should have come out of the place itself, surely? I thought to encourage native industry, when found, by ordering woollen hose at the convent school. No two stockings of the same pair were of equal length. The bay was rich in fish, and one day came a little fleet of fishing boats--_from France!_ There was Ireland to-day in a nutshell. What of to-morrow? Is this really Ireland’s heavy sleep before the dawn?