Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/229

 CHAPTER V

THE EDITOR'S ROOM

was attempted in public by the young men was commonly considered beforehand in the editor's room, where the Cabinet of the party met. The work for which we were more individually responsible, the literary and educational projects, were considered and revised there, and often subjected to a searching and pitiless criticism. It was said by some one familiar with these labours, that, like icebergs, twothirds of our compass was always invisible. In the interval between the final rupture of negotiations with O'Connell and the outbreak of the still unexpected French Revolution, the work done was considerable and not unfruitful.

I can declare, for I have tried both experiments, that the responsibilities of a Minister of State does not need prompter counsel or more constant vigilance than the editor's chair in a journal so many-sided as the Nation.

The English party whose assistance we were promised, and one of whom we had got elected for Mallow, created hopes which in the end were imperfectly realised.

When David Urquhart came to Dublin he excited very mixed feelings. He was manifestly a man of ability, but 211