Celtic Literature | Page 4

likeness with
what they love and admire; but the Englishman seems never to dream
of employing these influences upon a race he wants to fuse with
himself. He employs simply material interests for his work of fusion;
and, beyond these, nothing except scorn and rebuke. Accordingly there
is no vital union between him and the races he has annexed; and while
France can truly boast of her 'magnificent unity,' a unity of spirit no
less than of name between all the people who compose her, in England
the Englishman proper is in union of spirit with no one except other
Englishmen proper like himself. His Welsh and Irish fellow-citizens are
hardly more amalgamated with him now than they were when Wales
and Ireland were first conquered, and the true unity of even these small
islands has yet to he achieved. When these papers of mine on the Celtic
genius and literature first appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, they
brought me, as was natural, many communications from Welshmen and
Irishmen having an interest in the subject; and one could not but be
painfully struck, in reading these communications, to see how profound
a feeling of aversion and severance from the English they in general
manifested. Who can be surprised at it, when he observes the strain of
the Times in the articles just quoted, and remembers that this is the
characteristic strain of the Englishman in commenting on whatsoever is
not himself? And then, with our boundless faith in machinery, we

English expect the Welshman as a matter of course to grow attached to
us, because we invite him to do business with us, and let him hold any
number of public meetings and publish all the newspapers he likes!
When shall we learn, that what attaches people to us is the spirit we are
of, and not the machinery we employ?
Last year there was a project of holding a Breton Eisteddfod at
Quimper in Brittany, and the French Home Secretary, whether wishing
to protect the magnificent unity of France from inroads of Bretonism,
or fearing lest the design should be used in furtherance of Legitimist
intrigues, or from whatever motive, issued an order which prohibited
the meeting. If Mr. Walpole had issued an order prohibiting the Chester
Eisteddfod, all the Englishmen from Cornwall to John o' Groat's House
would have rushed to the rescue; and our strong sense and sturdy
morality would never have stopped gnashing their teeth and rending
their garments till the prohibition was rescinded. What a pity our strong
sense and sturdy morality fail to perceive that words like those of the
Times create a far keener sense of estrangement and dislike than acts
like those of the French Minister! Acts like those of the French
Minister are attributed to reasons of State, and the Government is held
blameable for them, not the French people. Articles like those of the
Times are attributed to the want of sympathy and of sweetness of
disposition in the English nature, and the whole English people gets the
blame of them. And deservedly; for from some such ground of want of
sympathy and sweetness in the English nature, do articles like those of
the Times come, and to some such ground do they make appeal. The
sympathetic and social virtues of the French nature, on the other hand,
actually repair the breaches made by oppressive deeds of the
Government, and create, among populations joined with France as the
Welsh and Irish are joined with England, a sense of liking and
attachment towards the French people. The French Government may
discourage the German language in Alsace and prohibit Eisteddfods in
Brittany; but the Journal des Debats never treats German music and
poetry as mischievous lumber, nor tells the Bretons that the sooner all
Breton specialities disappear from the face of the earth the better.
Accordingly, the Bretons and Alsatians have come to feel themselves a
part of France, and to feel pride in bearing the French name; while the
Welsh and Irish obstinately refuse to amalgamate with us, and will not

admire the Englishman as he admires himself, however much the
Times may scold them and rate them, and assure them there is nobody
on earth so admirable.
And at what a moment does it assure them of this, good heavens! At a
moment when the ice is breaking up in England, and we are all
beginning at last to see how much real confusion and insufficiency it
covered; when, whatever may be the merits,--and they are great,--of the
Englishman and of his strong sense and sturdy morality, it is growing
more and more evident that, if he is to endure and advance, he must
transform himself, must add something to his strong sense and sturdy
morality, or at least must give to