post of honour, leading his men in a victorious charge."
"It is not the death of the Professor nor of the soldier, nor of the politician, nor even of the poet and the essayist, that causes the heartache we feel," writes a comrade. "It is the loss of that rare, charming, wondrous personality summed up in those two simple words—Tom Kettle."
A friend once said of him that he was "infinitely lovable." His great gifts accompanied by a rare simplicity and charm of manner that broke down all social barriers, compelled affection. He was known to all as "Tom Kettle." To his men, he was "their own Captain Tom." Perhaps the greatest proof of his magnetic personality lies in the fact that all classes, the Unionist and Nationalist, the soldier, the Sinn Feiner, and, as the Freeman says, "those wearing the convict garb" of England, united in mourning his death and paying tribute to his memory.
The Irish Times, the opponent of all his political ideals, said: "As Irish Unionists we lay our wreath on the grave of a generous Nationalist, a brilliant Irishman, and a loyal soldier of the King."
"There was in his rich and versatile temperament," said the Church of Ireland Gazette, "nothing of that narrow, obscurantist spirit which is the curse of much of Irish Nationalism."
Ireland was his one splendid prejudice. In The
