1909] Trial of Dingra 259 



distinguished of the lay Modernists in England, and with his daughter, 

 a devout disciple of Tyrrell's. She was greatly pleased with his lines, 

 ' Two Chambers hath the Heart,' when I recited them to her. The 

 London friends having arrived, we formed procession some forty or 

 fifty persons, to the grave, which was in Storrington parish church- 

 yard, a pleasant place under the Down where Tyrrell had been in the 

 habit of walking and reciting his breviary not twenty yards away from 

 the Catholic Chapel, just outside the wall, symbolic, so I thought, of 

 the position into which Tyrrell himself had drifted. Abbe Bremond 

 read the funeral prayers in English, and then read an address he had 

 very carefully composed for publication, a moderate and worthy pre- 

 sentment of his poor friend's religious attitude towards either Church, 

 the English or the Roman. Miss Petre was to me the chief interest 

 at the grave. She was evidently much moved, and her face showed 

 signs of weeping, but she stood there valiantly with her sisters and 

 two little nieces following the prayers out of a book with them and 

 giving the responses aloud. I shook hands with her when all was over, 

 and she asked me into the house, but I did nor care to face the crowd 

 there, and drove straight home. 



" 2yd July. — The Foreign Office vote was taken yesterday, the whole 

 time allotted to it being occupied discussing the C. v ar's visit, so that 

 Dillon could say nothing about Egypt. It is impossible to get any 

 attention in the House of Commons either about foreign affairs or about 

 India. 



" 24U1 July. — Dingra, the slayer of Sir Curzon Wyllie, h?s been 

 condemned to death, having made no defence, beyond a dignified justi- 

 fication of his act as one of political warfare. When the judge, the 

 Lord Chief Justice, had passed sentence on him that he should be 

 hanged by the neck until he was dead, ' Thank you, my lord,' Dingra 

 said. ' I am proud to have the honour to lay down my humble life for 

 my country.' Also, before the sentence, he had said : ' You can pass 

 sentence of death on me if you like, it is perfectly illegal. You are 

 all-powerful and can do what you like, but remember, we shall have our 

 time.' No Christian martyr ever faced his judges more fearlessly or 

 with greater dignity. I discussed his case with Khaparde. who is here 

 for the week-end, his first country visit in England. He is as full of 

 admiration as I am of Dingra's courage. We agreed that if India 

 could produce five hundred men as absolutely without fear she would 

 achieve her freedom. It was recorded in the medical evidence at the 

 trial that when arrested, Dingra's pulse beat no quicker than was 

 normal, nor from first to last has he shown any sign of weakening. 



"25th July (Sunday). — Khaparde (Mrs. Russell, Miss Cockerell. 

 and Miss Nussey being here) gave us a most interesting account of 

 his religious views. He is a Theosophist, having adopted their tenets 



