The Crest-Wave of Evolution | Page 8

long
past its prime and querulous with old age, I think Two thousand years
of severe pralaya, almost complete extinction, utter insignificance and
terrible karma awaited them; and we only see them, pardon the
expression, kicking up their heels in a final plunge as a preparation for
that long silence.
Some time back I discussed these historical questions, particularly the
correspondence between Celtic and Chinese dates, with Dr. Siren and
Professor Fernholm; and they pointed out to me a similar
correspondence between the dates of Scandinavian and West Asian
history. I can remember but one example now: Gustavus Vasa, father of
modern Sweden, founder of the present monarchy, came to the throne
in 1523 and died in 1560. The last great epoch of the West Asian Cycle
coincides, in the west, and reign of Suleyman the Magnificent in
Turkey, from 1520 to 1566. At its eastern extremity, Babar founded the
Mogul Empire in India in 1526; he reigned until 1556. On the death of
Aurangzeb in 1707, the Moguls ceased to be a great power; the Battle
of Pultowa, in 1709, put an end to Sweden's military greatness.
It is interesting to compare the earliest Celtic literature we have, with
the earliest literature of the race which was to be the main instrument of
Celtic bad karma in historical times--the Teutons. Here, as usual,
common impressions are false. It is the latter, the Teutonic, that is in
the minor key, and full of wistful sadness. There is an earnestness about
it: a recognition of, and rather mournful acquiescence in, the mightiness
of Fate, which is imagined almost always adverse. I quote these lines

from William Morris, who, a Celt himself by mere blood and race,
lived in and interpreted the old Teutonic spirit as no other English
writer has attempted to do, mush less succeeded in doing: he is the one
Teuton of English literature. He speaks of the "haunting melancholy" of
the northern races--the "Thought of the Otherwhere" that
"Waileth weirdly along through all music and song From a Teuton's
voice or string: ..."
Withal it was a brave melancholy that possessed them; they were equal
to great deeds, and not easily to be discouraged; they could make merry,
too; but in the midst of their merriment, they could not forget grim and
hostile Fate:--
"There dwelt men merry-hearted and in hope exceeding great, Met the
good days and the evil as they went the ways of fate."
It is literature that reveals the heart of a people who had suffered long,
and learnt from their suffering the lessons of patience, humility,
continuity of effort: those qualities which enable them, in their coming
manvantaric period, to dominate large portions of the world.
But when we turn to the Celtic remains, the picture we find is
altogether different. Their literature tells of a people, in the Biblical
phrase, "with a proud look and a high stomach." It is full of flashing
colors, gaiety, titanic pride. There was no grayness, no mournful
twilight hue on the horizon of their mind; their 'Other-World' was only
more dawn-lit, more noon-illumined, than this one; Ireland of the living
was sun-bright and sparkling and glorious; but the 'Great Plain' of the
dead was far more sun-bright and sparkling than Ireland. It is the
literature of a people accustomed to victory and predominance. When
they began to meet defeat they by no means acquiesced in it. They
regarded adverse fate, not with reverence, but with contempt. They saw
in sorrow no friend and instructress of the human soul; were at pains to
learn no lesson from her; instead, they pitted what was their pride, but
what they would have called the glory of their own souls, against her;
they made no terms, asked no truce; but went on believing the
human--or perhaps I should say the Celtic--soul more glorious than fate,

stronger to endure and defy than she to humiliate and torment. In many
sense it was a fatal attitude, and they reaped the misery of it; but they
gained some wealth for the human spirit from it too. The aged Oisin
has returned from Fairyland to find the old glorious order in Ireland
fallen and passed during the three centuries of his absence. High
Paganism has gone, and a religion meek, inglorious, and Unceltic has
taken its mission thereto: tells him the gods are conquered and dead,
and that the omnipotent God of the Christians reigns alone now.--"I
would thy God were set on yonder hill to fight with my son Oscar!"
replies Oisin. Patrick paints for him the hell to which he is destined
unless he accepts Christianity; and Oisin answers:
"Put the staff in my hands! for I go to the Fenians, thou cleric, to chant
The warsongs that roused them of old; they will