Froude's own views, others are entirely dramatic and
introduced for the purpose of characterisation. We append some
specimens. As epigrams they are not very felicitous, but they are
interesting from some points of view.

Irish Society grew up in happy recklessness. Insecurity added zest to
enjoyment.

We Irish must either laugh or cry, and if we went in for crying, we
should all hang ourselves.

Too close a union with the Irish had produced degeneracy both of
character and creed in all the settlements of English.

We age quickly in Ireland with the whiskey and the broken heads.

The Irish leaders cannot fight. They can make the country
ungovernable, and keep an English army occupied in watching them.

No nation can ever achieve a liberty that will not be a curse to them,
except by arms in the field.

[The Irish] are taught from their cradles that English rule is the
cause of all their miseries. They were as ill off under their own
chiefs; but they would bear from their natural leaders what they will
not bear from us, and if we have not made their lot more wretched we
have not made it any better.

'Patriotism? Yes! Patriotism of the Hibernian order. The country
has been badly treated, and is poor and miserable. This is the
patriot's stock in trade. Does he want it mended? Not he. His own
occupation would be gone.'

Irish corruption is the twin-brother of Irish eloquence.

England will not let us break the heads of our scoundrels; she will
not break them herself; we are a free country, and must take the
consequences.

The functions of the Anglo-Irish Government were to do what ought not
to be done, and to leave undone what ought to be done.

The Irish race have always been noisy, useless and ineffectual. They
have produced nothing, they have done nothing, which it is possible to
admire. What they are, that they have always been, and the only hope
for them is that their ridiculous Irish nationality should be buried
and forgotten.

The Irish are the best actors in the world.

Order is an exotic in Ireland. It has been imported from England, but
it will not grow. It suits neither soil, nor climate. If the English
wanted order in Ireland, they should have left none of us alive.

When ruling powers are unjust, nature reasserts her rights.

Even anarchy has its advantages.

Nature keeps an accurate account. . . . The longer a bill is left
unpaid, the heavier the accumulation of interest.

You cannot live in Ireland without breaking laws on one side or
another. Pecca fortiter, therefore, as . . . Luther said.

The animal spirits of the Irish remained when all else was gone, and
if there was no purpose in their lives, they could at least enjoy
themselves.

The Irish peasants can make the country hot for the Protestant
gentleman, but that is all they are fit for.

As we said before, if Mr. Froude intended his book to help the Tory
Government to solve the Irish question he has entirely missed his aim.
The Ireland of which he writes has disappeared.