seek a better, is after all a false one. Plausible and attractive as it may be, the constitution of things turns out to be somehow or other against it. And why? Because the free development of our senses 5 all round, of our apparent self, has to undergo a profound modification from the law of our higher real self, the law of righteousness; because he, whose ideal is the free development of the senses all round, serves the senses, is a servant. But: The servant 10 abideth not in the house for ever; the son abideth for ever."

5

Is it possible to imagine a grander testimony to the truth of the revelation committed to Israel? What miracle of making an iron axe-head float on 15 water, what successful prediction that a thing should happen just so many years and months and days hence, could be really half so impressive?-Literature and Dogma, ed. 1896, pp. 319-325.

5 John viii. 35.

The Celt and the Teuton.

LET me repeat what I have often said of the characteristics which mark the English spirit, the English genius. This spirit, this genius, judged, to be sure, rather from a friend's than an enemy's point of view, yet judged on the whole fairly, is characterised, I 5 have repeatedly said, by energy with honesty. Take away some of the energy which comes to us, as I believe, in part from Celtic and Roman sources; insteady of energy, say rather steadiness; and you have the Germanic genius: steadiness with honesty.10 It is evident how nearly the two characterisations approach one another; and yet they leave, as we shall see, a great deal of room for difference. Steadiness with honesty; the danger for a national spirit thus composed is the humdrum, the plain and ugly, 15 the ignoble in a word, das Gemeine, die Gemeinheit, that curse of Germany, against which Goethe was all his life fighting. The excellence of a national spirit thus composed is freedom from whim, flightiness, perverseness; patient fidelity to Nature,-in a word, 20 science,-leading it at last, though slowly, and not by the most brilliant road, out of the bondage of the humdrum and common, into the better life. The universal dead-level of plainness and homeliness, the lack of all beauty and distinction in form and feature, 25 the slowness and clumsiness of the language, the

་

eternal beer, sausages, and bad tobacco, the blank commonness everywhere, pressing at last like a weight on the spirits of the traveller in Northern Germany, and making him impatient to be gone,5 this is the weak side; the industry, the well-doing, the patient steady elaboration of things, the idea of science governing all departments of human activity, -this is the strong side; and through this side of her genius, Germany has already obtained excellent Io results, and is destined, we may depend upon it, however her pedantry, her slowness, her fumbling, her ineffectiveness, her bad government, may at times makes us cry out, to an immense development.'

For dulness, the creeping Saxons,-says an old Irish 15 poem, assigning the characteristics for which different nations are celebrated :

20

For acuteness and valour, the Greeks,

For excessive pride, the Romans,

For dulness, the creeping Saxons;

For beauty and amorousness, the Gaedhils.

We have seen in what sense, and with what explanation, this characterisation of the German may be allowed to stand; now let us come to the beautiful and amorous Gaedhil. Or rather, let us find a defini25 tion which may suit both branches of the Celtic family, the Cymri as well as the Gael. It is clear that special circumstances may have developed some one side in the national character of Cymri or Gael, Welshman or Irishman, so that the observer's notice

It is to be remembered that the above was written before the recent war between Prussia and Austria,

shall be readily caught by this side, and yet it may be impossible to adopt it as characteristic of the Celtic nature generally. For instance, in his beautiful essay on the poetry of the Celtic races, M. Renan, with his eyes fixed on the Bretons and the Welsh, is struck 5. with the timidity, the shyness, the delicacy of the Celtic nature, its preference for a retired life, its embarrassment at having to deal with the great world. He talks of the douce petite race naturellement chrétienne, his race fière et timide, à l'extérieur gauche et embar- 10 rassée. But it is evident that this description, however well it may do for the Cymri, will never do for the Gael, never do for the typical Irishman of Donnybrook fair. Again, M. Renan's infinie délicatesse de . sentiment qui caractérise la race Celtique, how little 15 that accords with the popular conception of an Irishman who wants to borrow money! Sentiment is, however, the word which marks where the Celtic races really touch and are one; sentimental, if the Celtic nature is to be characterised by a single term, is the 20 best term to take. An organisation quick to feel` impressions, and feeling them wery strongly; a lively personality therefore, keenly sensitive to joy and to sorrow; this is the main poi t. If the downs of life too much outnumber the ups, this temperament, 25 just because it is so quickly and nearly conscious of all impressions, may no doubt be seen shy and wounded; it may be seen in wistful regret, it may be seen in passionate, penetrating melancholy; but its essence is to aspire ardently after life, light, and 30 emotion, to be expansive, adventurous, and gay. Our word gay, it is said, is itself Celtic. It is not from

2

gaudium, but from the Celtic gair, to laugh; ' and the impressionable Celt, soon up and soon down, is the more down because it is so his nature to be upto be sociable, hospitable, eloquent, admired, figuring 5 away brilliantly. He loves bright colours, he easily becomes audacious, overcrowing, full of fanfaronade. The German, say the physiologists, has the larger volume of intestines (and who that has ever seen a German at a table-d'hôte will not readily believe this?), Io the Frenchman has the more developed organs of respiration. That is just the expansive, eager Celtic nature; the head in the air, snuffing and snorting; a proud look and a high stomach, as the Psalmist says, but without any such settled savage temper as the 15 Psalmist seems to impute by those words. For good and for bad, the Celtic genius is more airy and unsubstantial, goes less near the ground, than the German. The Celt is often called sensual; but it is not so much the vulgar satisfactions of sense that attract him as 20 emotion and excitement; he is truly, as I began by saying, sentimental.

by

Sentimental, always ready to react against the despotism of fact; that is the description a great

2 The etymology is onsieur Henri Martin's, but Lord Strangford says:- -“Whatever gai may be, it is assuredly not Celtic. Is there any authority for this word gair, to laugh, or rather 'laughter,' beyond O'Reilly? O'Reilly is no authority at all except in so far as tested and passed by the new school. It is hard to give up gavisus. But Diez, chief authority in Romanic matters, is content to accept Muratori's reference to an old HighGerman gdhi, modern jähe, sharp, quick, sudden, brisk, and so to the sense of lively, animated, high in spirits."