He is writing a
book, which Mrs. Wogan Odevaine insists is to be called The Groans
of Ireland; but after a glance at a page of memoranda pencilled in a
collection of Swift's Irish Tracts that he lent to me (the volume
containing that ghastly piece of irony, The Modest Proposal for
Preventing the Poor of Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents
and Country), I have concluded that he is editing a Catalogue of
Irish Wrongs, Alphabetically Arranged. This idea pleased Mrs. Wogan
Odevaine extremely; and when she drove over to tea, bringing several
cheerful young people to call upon us, she proposed, in the most
light-hearted way in the world, to play what she termed the
Grievance Game, an intellectual diversion which she had invented on
the instant. She proposed it, apparently, with a view of showing us
how small a knowledge of Ireland's ancient wrongs is the property of
the modern Irish girl, and how slight a hold on her memory and
imagination have the unspeakably bitter days of the long ago.
We were each given pencil and paper, and two or three letters of the
alphabet, and bidden to arrange the wrongs of Ireland neatly under
them, as we supposed Mr. Jordan to be doing for the instruction and
the depression of posterity. The result proved that Mrs. Odevaine
was a true prophet, for the youngest members of the coterie came off
badly enough, and read their brief list of grievances with much
chagrin at their lack of knowledge; the only piece of information
they possessed in common being the inherited idea that England never
had understood Ireland, never would, never could, never should,
never might understand her.
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