Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/51

 might be said that the only thing madder than the insurrection was the manner of its suppression. Two wrongs do not make a right, nor do two follies make common sense. We in Ireland had the right, if not the precedent, to expect as fair treatment as was meted out by Botha to rebels in South Africa. My husband felt after the disasters of Easter week more than ever committed to the attitude he had taken up. He brought pressure to bear that he might be sent immediately to the front. On the 14th of July, 1916, he sailed for France.

His comrades speak of his wonderful courage, endurance and buoyant spirits at the front. He was never out of cheer, though he had a curious prophetic feeling all through that he would die on the battlefield in France.

"Do not think of us as glum," he wrote to me in August. "Gaiety is a sort of courage, and my Company is the gayest of the Battalion." In a letter to a friend he again speaks of his happy mood and his deep love of France: "I myself am quite extraordinarily happy. If it should come my way to die, I shall sleep well in the France I always loved, and shall know that I have done something towards bringing to birth the Ireland one has dreamed of."

France he loved in truth. In this volume he refers to her "as the most interesting and logical of nations," and in The Day's Burden he says: "The Irish mind is moreover like the French—*