No More Learning

Are Athalie and the Discourse on Universal History the greatest
masterpieces that the strict classical theory can present to its
friends as well as to its enemies? In spite of the admirable
simplicity and dignity in the achievement of such unique
productions, we should like, nevertheless, in the interests of art,
to expand that theory a little, and to show that it is possible to
enlarge it without relaxing the tension. Goethe, whom I like to
quote on such a subject, said:--

"I call the classical healthy, and the romantic sickly. In my
opinion the Nibelungen song is as much a classic as Homer. Both are
healthy and vigorous. The works of the day are romantic, not because
they are new, but because they are weak, ailing, or sickly. Ancient
works are classical not because they are old, but because they are
powerful, fresh, and healthy. If we regarded romantic and classical
from those two points of view we should soon all agree. "

Indeed, before determining and fixing the opinions on that matter, I
should like every unbiassed mind to take a voyage round the world
and devote itself to a survey of different literatures in their
primitive vigour and infinite variety. What would be seen? Chief of
all a Homer, the father of the classical world, less a single
distinct individual than the vast living expression of a whole epoch
and a semi-barbarous civilisation. In order to make him a true
classic, it was necessary to attribute to him later a design, a
plan, literary invention, qualities of atticism and urbanity of
which he had certainly never dreamed in the luxuriant development of
his natural inspirations. And who appear by his side? August,
venerable ancients, the AEschyluses and the Sophocles, mutilated, it
is true, and only there to present us with a debris of themselves,
the survivors of many others as worthy, doubtless, as they to
survive, but who have succumbed to the injuries of time. This
thought alone would teach a man of impartial mind not to look upon
the whole of even classical literatures with a too narrow and
restricted view; he would learn that the exact and well-proportioned
order which has since so largely prevailed in our admiration of the
past was only the outcome of artificial circumstances.

And in reaching the modern world, how would it be? The greatest
names to be seen at the beginning of literatures are those which
disturb and run counter to certain fixed ideas of what is beautiful
and appropriate in poetry. For example, is Shakespeare a classic?
Yes, now, for England and the world; but in the time of Pope he was
not considered so. Pope and his friends were the only pre-eminent
classics; directly after their death they seemed so for ever. At the
present time they are still classics, as they deserve to be, but
they are only of the second order, and are for ever subordinated and
relegated to their rightful place by him who has again come to his
own on the height of the horizon.

It is not, however, for me to speak ill of Pope or his great
disciples, above all, when they possess pathos and naturalness like
Goldsmith: after the greatest they are perhaps the most agreeable
writers and the poets best fitted to add charm to life. Once when
Lord Bolingbroke was writing to Swift, Pope added a postscript, in
which he said--"I think some advantage would result to our age, if
we three spent three years together. " Men who, without boasting,
have the right to say such things must never be spoken of lightly:
the fortunate ages, when men of talent could propose such things,
then no chimera, are rather to be envied. The ages called by the
name of Louis XIV. or of Queen Anne are, in the dispassionate sense
of the word, the only true classical ages, those which offer
protection and a favourable climate to real talent. We know only to
well how in our untrammelled times, through the instability and
storminess of the age, talents are lost and dissipated.
Nevertheless, let us acknowledge our age's part and superiority in
greatness. True and sovereign genius triumphs over the very
difficulties that cause others to fail: Dante, Shakespeare, and
Milton were able to attain their height and produce their
imperishable works in spite of obstacles, hardships and tempests.
Byron's opinion of Pope has been much discussed, and the explanation
of it sought in the kind of contradiction by which the singer of Don
Juan and Childe Harold extolled the purely classical school and
pronounced it the only good one, while himself acting so
differently. Goethe spoke the truth on that point when he remarked
that Byron, great by the flow and source of poetry, feared that
Shakespeare was more powerful than himself in the creation and
realisation of his characters. "He would have liked to deny it; the
elevation so free from egoism irritated him; he felt when near it
that he could not display himself at ease. He never denied Pope,
because he did not fear him; he knew that Pope was only a low wall
by his side. "

If, as Byron desired, Pope's school had kept the supremacy and a
sort of honorary empire in the past, Byron would have been the first
and only poet in his particular style; the height of Pope's wall
shuts out Shakespeare's great figure from sight, whereas when
Shakespeare reigns and rules in all his greatness, Byron is only
second.

In France there was no great classic before the age of Louis XIV. ;
the Dantes and Shakespeares, the early authorities to whom, in times
of emancipation, men sooner or later return, were wanting. There
were mere sketches of great poets, like Mathurin Regnier, like
Rabelais, without any ideal, without the depth of emotion and the
seriousness which canonises. Montaigne was a kind of premature
classic, of the family of Horace, but for want of worthy
surroundings, like a spoiled child, he gave himself up to the
unbridled fancies of his style and humour. Hence it happened that
France, less than any other nation, found in her old authors a right
to demand vehemently at a certain time literary liberty and freedom,
and that it was more difficult for her, in enfranchising herself, to
remain classical. However, with Moliere and La Fontaine among her
classics of the great period, nothing could justly be refused to
those who possessed courage and ability.

The important point now seems to me to be to uphold, while
extending, the idea and belief. There is no receipt for making
classics; this point should be clearly recognised. To believe that
an author will become a classic by imitating certain qualities of
purity, moderation, accuracy, and elegance, independently of the
style and inspiration, is to believe that after Racine the father
there is a place for Racine the son; dull and estimable role, the
worst in poetry. Further, it is hazardous to take too quickly and
without opposition the place of a classic in the sight of one's
contemporaries; in that case there is a good chance of not retaining
the position with posterity. Fontanes in his day was regarded by his
friends as a pure classic; see how at twenty-five years' distance
his star has set. How many of these precocious classics are there
who do not endure, and who are so only for a while! We turn round
one morning and are surprised not to find them standing behind us.
Madame de Sevigne would wittily say they possessed but an evanescent
colour. With regard to classics, the least expected prove the best
and greatest: seek them rather in the vigorous genius born immortal
and flourishing for ever. Apparently the least classical of the four
great poets of the age of Louis XIV. was Moliere; he was then
applauded far more than he was esteemed; men took delight in him
without understanding his worth. After him, La Fontaine seemed the
least classical: observe after two centuries what is the result for
both. Far above Boileau, even above Racine, are they not now
unanimously considered to possess in the highest degree the
characteristics of an all-embracing morality?

Meanwhile there is no question of sacrificing or depreciating
anything. I believe the temple of taste is to be rebuilt; but its
reconstruction is merely a matter of enlargement, so that it may
become the home of all noble human beings, of all who have
permanently increased the sum of the mind's delights and
possessions. As for me, who cannot, obviously, in any degree pretend
to be the architect or designer of such a temple, I shall confine
myself to expressing a few earnest wishes, to submit, as it were, my
designs for the edifice. Above all I should desire not to exclude
any one among the worthy, each should be in his place there, from
Shakespeare, the freest of creative geniuses, and the greatest of
classics without knowing it, to Andrieux, the last of classics in
little. "There is more than one chamber in the mansions of my
Father;" that should be as true of the kingdom of the beautiful here
below, as of the kingdom of Heaven. Homer, as always and everywhere,
should be first, likest a god; but behind him, like the procession
of the three wise kings of the East, would be seen the three great
poets, the three Homers, so long ignored by us, who wrote epics for
the use of the old peoples of Asia, the poets Valmiki, Vyasa of the
Hindoos, and Firdousi of the Persians: in the domain of taste it is
well to know that such men exist, and not to divide the human race.
Our homage paid to what is recognized as soon as perceived, we must
not stray further; the eye should delight in a thousand pleasing or
majestic spectacles, should rejoice in a thousand varied and
surprising combinations, whose apparent confusion would never be
without concord and harmony. The oldest of the wise men and poets,
those who put human morality into maxims, and those who in simple
fashion sung it, would converse together in rare and gentle speech,
and would not be surprised at understanding each other's meaning at
the very first word. Solon, Hesiod, Theognis, Job, Solomon, and why
not Confucius, would welcome the cleverest moderns, La Rochefoucauld
and La Bruyere, who, when listening to them, would say "they knew
all that we know, and in repeating life's experiences, we have
discovered nothing. " On the hill, most easily discernible, and of
most accessible ascent, Virgil, surrounded by Menander, Tibullus,
Terence, Fenelon, would occupy himself in discoursing with them with
great charm and divine enchantment: his gentle countenance would
shine with an inner light, and be tinged with modesty; as on the day
when entering the theatre at Rome, just as they finished reciting
his verses, he saw the people rise with an unanimous movement and
pay to him the same homage as to Augustus. Not far from him,
regretting the separation from so dear a friend, Horace, in his
turn, would preside (as far as so accomplished and wise a poet could
preside) over the group of poets of social life who could talk
although they sang,--Pope, Boileau, the one become less irritable,
the other less fault-finding. Montaigne, a true poet, would be among
them, and would give the finishing touch that should deprive that
delightful corner of the air of a literary school. There would La
Fontaine forget himself, and becoming less volatile would wander no
more. Voltaire would be attracted by it, but while finding pleasure
in it would not have patience to remain. A little lower down, on the
same hill as Virgil, Xenophon, with simple bearing, looking in no
way like a general, but rather resembling a priest of the Muses,
would be seen gathering round him the Attics of every tongue and of
every nation, the Addisons, Pellissons, Vauvenargues--all who feel
the value of an easy persuasiveness, an exquisite simplicity, and a
gentle negligence mingled with ornament. In the centre of the place,
in the portico of the principal temple (for there would be several
in the enclosure), three great men would like to meet often, and
when they were together, no fourth, however great, would dream of
joining their discourse or their silence. In them would be seen
beauty, proportion in greatness, and that perfect harmony which
appears but once in the full youth of the world. Their three names
have become the ideal of art--Plato, Sophocles, and Demosthenes.
Those demi-gods honoured, we see a numerous and familiar company of
choice spirits who follow, the Cervantes and Molieres, practical
painters of life, indulgent friends who are still the first of
benefactors, who laughingly embrace all mankind, turn man's
experience to gaiety, and know the powerful workings of a sensible,
hearty, and legitimate joy. I do not wish to make this description,
which if complete would fill a volume, any longer. In the middle
ages, believe me, Dante would occupy the sacred heights: at the feet
of the singer of Paradise all Italy would be spread out like a
garden; Boccaccio and Ariosto would there disport themselves, and
Tasso would find again the orange groves of Sorrento. Usually a
corner would be reserved for each of the various nations, but the
authors would take delight in leaving it, and in their travels would
recognise, where we should least expect it, brothers or masters.
Lucretius, for example, would enjoy discussing the origin of the
world and the reducing of chaos to order with Milton. But both
arguing from their own point of view, they would only agree as
regards divine pictures of poetry and nature.

Such are our classics; each individual imagination may finish the
sketch and choose the group preferred. For it is necessary to make a
choice, and the first condition of taste, after obtaining knowledge
of all, lies not in continual travel, but in rest and cessation from
wandering. Nothing blunts and destroys taste so much as endless
journeyings; the poetic spirit is not the Wandering Jew. However,
when I speak of resting and making choice, my meaning is not that we
are to imitate those who charm us most among our masters in the
past. Let us be content to know them, to penetrate them, to admire
them; but let us, the late-comers, endeavour to be ourselves. Let us
have the sincerity and naturalness of our own thoughts, of our own
feelings; so much is always possible. To that let us add what is
more difficult, elevation, an aim, if possible, towards an exalted
goal; and while speaking our own language, and submitting to the
conditions of the times in which we live, whence we derive our
strength and our defects, let us ask from time to time, our brows
lifted towards the heights and our eyes fixed on the group of
honoured mortals: what would that say of us?

But why speak always of authors and writings? Maybe an age is coming
when there will be no more writing. Happy those who read and read
again, those who in their reading can follow their unrestrained
inclination! There comes a time in life when, all our journeys over,
our experiences ended, there is no enjoyment more delightful than to
study and thoroughly examine the things we know, to take pleasure in
what we feel, and in seeing and seeing again the people we love: the
pure joys of our maturity. Then it is that the word classic takes
its true meaning, and is defined for every man of taste by an
irresistible choice. Then taste is formed, it is shaped and
definite; then good sense, if we are to possess it at all, is
perfected in us. We have neither more time for experiments, nor a
desire to go forth in search of pastures newf We cling to our
friends, to those proved by long intercourse. Old wine, old books,
old friends. We say to ourselves with Voltaire in these delightful
lines:--"Let us enjoy, let us write, let us live, my dear Horace! . . . I
have lived longer than you: my verse will not last so long. But on
the brink of the tomb I shall make it my chief care--to follow the
lessons of your philosophy--to despise death in enjoying life--to
read your writings full of charm and good sense--as we drink an old
wine which revives our senses. "

In fact, be it Horace or another who is the author preferred, who
reflects our thoughts in all the wealth of their maturity, of some
one of those excellent and antique minds shall we request an
interview at every moment; of some one of them shall we ask a
friendship which never deceives, which could not fail us; to some
one of them shall we appeal for that sensation of serenity and
amenity (we have often need of it) which reconciles us with mankind
and with ourselves.




THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES

BY ERNEST RENAN


TRANSLATED BY W. G. HUTCHISON




INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Ernest Renan was born in 1823, at Treguier in Brittany. He was
educated for the priesthood, but never took orders, turning at first
to teaching. He continued his studies in religion and philology,
and, after traveling in Syria on a government commission, he
returned to Paris and became professor of Hebrew in the College de
France, from which he was suspended for a time on account of
protests against his heretical teachings. He died in 1892.

Renan's activity divides itself into two parts. The first culminated
in his two great works on the "Origins of Christianity" and on the
"History of Israel. " As to the scientific value of these books there
is difference of opinion, as was to be expected in a treatment of
such subjects to the exclusion of the miraculous. But the delicacy
and vividness of his portraits of the great personalities of Hebrew
history, and the acuteness of his analysis of national psychology,
are not to be denied.

The other part of his work is more miscellaneous, but most of it is
in some sense philosophical or autobiographical. Believing
profoundly in scientific method, Renan was unable to find in science
a basis for either ethics or metaphysics, and ended in a skepticism
often ironical, yet not untinged with mysticism.

"He was an amazing writer," says M. Faguet, "and disconcerted
criticism by the impossibility of explaining his methods of
procedure; he was luminous, supple, naturally pliant and yielding;
beneath his apparently effeminate grace an extraordinary strength of
character would suddenly make itself felt; he had, more than any
nineteenth-century writer, the quality of charm; he exercised a
caressing innuence which enveloped, and finally conquered, the
reader. "

In no kind of writing was Renan's command of style more notable than
in the description of scenery; and in his pictures of his native
Brittany in the essay on "The Poetry of the Celtic Races," as well
as in his analysis of national qualities, two of his most
characteristic powers are admirably displayed.




THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES

Every one who travels through the Armorican peninsula experiences a
change of the most abrupt description, as soon as he leaves behind
the district most closely bordering upon the continent, in which the
cheerful but commonplace type of face of Normandy and Maine is
continually in evidence, and passes into the true Brittany, that
which merits its name by language and race. A cold wind arises full
of a vague sadness, and carries the soul to other thoughts; the
tree-tops are bare and twisted; the heath with its monotony of tint
stretches away into the distance; at every step the granite
protrudes from a soil too scanty to cover it; a sea that is almost
always sombre girdles the horizon with eternal moaning. The same
contrast is manifest in the people: to Norman vulgarity, to a plump
and prosperous population, happy to live, full of its own interests,
egoistical as are all these who make a habit of enjoyment, succeeds
a timid and reserved race living altogether within itself, heavy in
appearance but capable of profound feeling, and of an adorable
delicacy in its religious instincts. A like change is apparent, I am
told, in passing from England into Wales, from the Lowlands of
Scotland, English by language and manners, into the Gaelic
Highlands; and too, though with a perceptible difference, when one
buries oneself in the districts of Ireland where the race has
remained pure from all admixture of alien blood. It seems like
entering on the subterranean strata of another world, and one
experiences in some measure the impression given us by Dante, when
he leads us from one circle of his Inferno to another.

Sufficient attention is not given to the peculiarity of this fact of
an ancient race living, until our days and almost under our eyes,
its own life in some obscure islands and peninsulas in the West,
more and more affected, it is true, by external influences, but
still faithful to its own tongue, to its own memories, to its own
customs, and to its own genius. Especially is it forgotten that this
little people, now concentrated on the very confines of the world,
in the midst of rocks and mountains whence its enemies have been
powerless to force it, is in possession of a literature which, in
the Middle Ages, exercised an immense influence, changed the current
of European civilisation, and imposed its poetical motives on nearly
the whole of Christendom. Yet it is only necessary to open the
authentic monuments of the Gaelic genius to be convinced that the
race which created them has had its own original manner of feeling
and thinking, that nowhere has the eternal illusion clad itself in
more seductive hues, and that in the great chorus of humanity no
race equals this for penetrative notes that go to the very heart.
Alas! it too is doomed to disappear, this emerald set in the Western
seas. Arthur will return no more from his isle of faery, and St.
Patrick was right when he said to Ossian, "The heroes that thou
weepest are dead; can they be born again? " It is high time to note,
before they shall have passed away, the divine tones thus expiring
on the horizon before the growing tumult of uniform civilisation.
Were criticism to set itself the task of calling back these distant
echoes, and of giving a voice to races that are no more, would not
that suffice to absolve it from the reproach, unreasonably and too
frequently brought against it, of being only negative?

Good works now exist which facilitate the task of him who undertakes
the study of these interesting literatures. Wales, above all, is
distinguished by scientific and literary activity, not always
accompanied, it is true, by a very rigorous critical spirit, but
deserving the highest praise. There, researches which would bring
honour to the most active centres of learning in Europe are the work
of enthusiastic amateurs. A peasant called Owen Jones published in
1801-7, under the name of the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, the
precious collection which is to this day the arsenal of Cymric
antiquities. A number of erudite and zealous workers, Aneurin Owen,
Thomas Price of Crickhowell, William Rees, and John Jones, following
in the footsteps of the Myvyrian peasant, set themselves to finish
his work, and to profit from the treasures which he had collected. A
woman of distinction, Lady Charlotte Guest, charged herself with the
task of acquainting Europe with the collection of the Mabinogion,
[Footnote: The Mabinogion, from the Llyfr Coch O Hergest and other
ancient Welsh Manuscripts, with an English Translation and Notes. By
Lady Charlotte Guest. London and Llandovery, 1837-49. The word
Mabinogi (in the plural Mabinogion) designates a form of romantic
narrative peculiar to Wales. The origin and primitive meaning of
this word are very uncertain, and Lady Guest's right to apply it to
the whole of the narratives which she has published is open to
doubt. ] the pearl of Gaelic literature, the completest expression of
the Cymric genius. This magnificent work, executed in twelve years
with the luxury that the wealthy English amateur knows how to use in
his publications, will one day attest how full of life the
consciousness of the Celtic races remained in the present century.
Only indeed the sincerest patriotism could inspire a woman to
undertake and achieve so vast a literary monument. Scotland and
Ireland have in like measure been enriched by a host of studies of
their ancient history. Lastly, our own Brittany, though all too
rarely studied with the philological and critical rigour now exacted
in works of erudition, has furnished Celtic antiquities with her
share of worthy research. Does it not suffice to cite M. de la
Villemarque, whose name will be henceforth associated among us with
these studies, and whose services are so incontestable, that
criticism need have no fear of depreciating him in the eyes of a
public which has accepted him with so much warmth and sympathy?

I.

If the excellence of races is to be appreciated by the purity of
their blood and the inviolability of their national character, it
must needs be admitted that none can vie in nobility with the still
surviving remains of the Celtic race. [Footnote: To avoid all
misunderstanding, I ought to point out that by the word Celtic I
designate here, not the whole of the great race which, at a remote
epoch, formed the population of nearly the whole of Western Europe,
but simply the four groups which, in our days, still merit this
name, as opposed to the Teutons and to the Neo-Latin peoples. These
four groups are: (i) The inhabitants of Wales or Cambria, and the
peninsula of Cornwall, bearing even now the ancient name of Cymry;
(2) the Bretons bretonnants, or dwellers in French Brittany speaking
Bas-Breton, who represent an emigration of the Cymry from Wales; (3)
the Gaels of the North of Scotland speaking Gaelic; (4) the Irish,
although a very profound line of demarcation separates Ireland from
the rest of the Celtic family. [It is also necessary to point out
that Renan in this essay applies the name Breton both to the Bretons
proper, i. e. the inhabitants of Brittany, and to the British
members of the Celtic race. --Translator's Note. ]]

Never has a human family lived more apart from the world, and been
purer from all alien admixture. Confined by conquest within
forgotten islands and peninsulas, it has reared an impassable
barrier against external influences; it has drawn all from itself;
it has lived solely on its own capital. From this ersues that
powerful individuality, that hatred of the foreigner, which even in
our own days has formed the essential feature of the Celtic peoples.
Roman civilisation scarcely reached them, and left among them but
few traces. The Teutonic invasion drove them back, but did not
penetrate them. At the present hour they are still constant in
resistance to an invasion dangerous in an altogether different way,-
-that of modern civilisation, destructive as it is of local
variations and national types. Ireland in particular (and herein we
perhaps have the secret of her irremediable weakness) is the only
country in Europe where the native can produce the titles of his
descent, and designate with certainty, even in the darkness of
prehistoric ages, the race from which he has sprung.

It is in this secluded life, in this defiance of all that comes from
without, that we must search for the explanation of the chief
features of the Celtic character. It has all the failings, and all
the good qualities, of the solitary man; at once proud and timid,
strong in feeling and feeble in action, at home free and unreserved,
to the outside world awkward and embarrassed. It distrusts the
foreigner, because it sees in him a being more refined than itself,
who abuses its simplicity. Indifferent to the admiration of others,
it asks only one thing, that it should be left to itself. It is
before all else a domestic race, fitted for family life and fireside
joys. In no other race has the bond of blood been stronger, or has
it created more duties, or attached man to his fellow with so much
breadth and depth. Every social institution of the Celtic peoples
was in the beginning only an extension of the family. A common
tradition attests, to this very day, that nowhere has the trace of
this great institution of relationship been better preserved than in
Brittany. There is a widely-spread belief in that country, that
blood speaks, and that two relatives, unknown one to the other, in
any part of the world wheresoever it may be, recognise each other by
the secret and mysterious emotion which they feel in each other's
presence. Respect for the dead rests on the same principle. Nowhere
has reverence for the dead been greater than among the Briton
peoples; nowhere have so many memories and prayers clustered about
the tomb. This is because life is not for these people a personal
adventure, undertaken by each man on his own account, and at his own
risks and perils; it is a link in a long chain, a gift received and
handed on, a debt paid and a duty done.

It is easily discernible how little fitted were natures so strongly
concentrated to furnish one of those brilliant developments, which
imposes the momentary ascendency of a people on the world; and that,
no doubt, is why the part played externally by the Cymric race has
always been a secondary one. Destitute of the means of expansion,
alien to all idea of aggression and conquest, little desirous of
making its thought prevail outside itself, it has only known how to
retire so far as space has permitted, and then, at bay in its last
place of retreat, to make an invincible resistance to its enemies.
Its very fidelity has been a useless devotion. Stubborn of
submission and ever behind the age, it is faithful to its conquerors
when its conquerors are no longer faithful to themselves. It was the
last to defend its religious independence against Rome--and it has
become the staunchest stronghold of Catholicism; it was the last in
France to defend its political independence against the king--and it
has given to the world the last royalists.

Thus the Celtic race has worn itself out in resistance to its time,
and in the defence of desperate causes. It does not seem as though
in any epoch it had any aptitude for political life. The spirit of
family stifled within it all attempts at more extended organisation.
Moreover, it does not appear that the peoples which form it are by
themselves susceptible of progress. To them life appears as a fixed
condition, which man has no power to alter. Endowed with little
initiative, too much inclined to look upon themselves as minors and
in tutelage, they are quick to believe in destiny and resign
themselves to it. Seeing how little audacious they are against God,
one would scarcely believe this race to be the daughter of Japhet.

Thence ensues its sadness. Take the songs of its bards of the sixth
century; they weep more defeats than they sing victories. Its
history is itself only one long lament; it still recalls its exiles,
its flights across the seas. If at times it seems to be cheerful, a
tear is not slow to glisten behind its smile; it does not know that
strange forgetfulness of human conditions and destinies which is
called gaiety. Its songs of joy end as elegies; there is nothing to
equal the delicious sadness of its national melodies. One might call
them emanations from on high which, falling drop by drop upon the
soul, pass through it like memories of another world. Never have men
feasted so long upon these solitary delights of the spirit, these
poetic memories which simultaneously intercross all the sensations
of life, so vague, so deep, so penetrative, that one might die from
them, without being able to say whether it was from bitterness or
sweetness.

The infinite delicacy of feeling which characterises the Celtic race
is closely allied to its need of concentration. Natures that are
little capable of expansion are nearly always those that feel most
deeply, for the deeper the feeling, the less it tends to express
itself. Thence we have that charming shamefastness, that veiled and
exquisite sobriety, equally far removed from the sentimental
rhetoric too familiar to the Latin races, and the reflective
simplicity of Germany, which are so admirably displayed in the
ballads published by M. de la Villemarque. The apparent reserve of
the Celtic peoples, often taken for coldness, is due to this inward
timidity which makes them believe that a feeling loses half its
value if it be expressed; and that the heart ought to have no other
spectator than itself.

If it be permitted us to assign sex to nations as to individuals, we
should have to say without hesitance that the Celtic race,
especially with regard to its Cymric or Breton branch, is an
essentially feminine race. No human family, I believe, has carried
so much mystery into love. No other has conceived with more delicacy
the ideal of woman, or been more fully dominated by it. It is a sort
of intoxication, a madness, a vertigo.
Read the strange Mabinogi of
Peredur, or its French imitation Parceval le Gallois; its pages are,
as it were, dewy with feminine sentiment. Woman appears therein as a
kind of vague vision, an intermediary between man and the
supernatural world. I am acquainted with no literature that offers
anything analogous to this. Compare Guinevere or Iseult with those
Scandinavian furies Gudrun and Chrimhilde, and you will avow that
woman such as chivalry conceived her, an ideal of sweetness and
loveliness set up as the supreme end of life, is a creation neither
classical, nor Christian, nor Teutonic, but in reality Celtic.

Imaginative power is nearly always proportionate to concentration of
feeling, and lack of the external development of life. The limited
nature of Greek and Italian imagination is due to the easy
expansiveness of the peoples of the South, with whom the soul,
wholly spread abroad, reflects but little within itself. Compared
with the classical imagination, the Celtic imagination is indeed the
infinite contrasted with the finite. In the fine Mabinogi of the
Dream of Maxem Wledig, the Emperor Maximus beholds in a dream a
young maiden so beautiful, that on waking he declares he cannot live
without her. For several years his envoys scour the world in search
of her; at last she is discovered in Brittany. So is it with the
Celtic race; it has worn itself out in taking dreams for realities,
and in pursuing its splendid visions. The essential element in the
Celt's poetic life is the adventure--that is to say, the pursuit of
the unknown, an endless quest after an object ever flying from
desire. It was of this that St. Brandan dreamed, that Peredur sought
with his mystic chivalry, that Knight Owen asked of his subterranean
journeyings. This race desires the infinite, it thirsts for it, and
pursues it at all costs, beyond the tomb, beyond hell itself. The
characteristic failing of the Breton peoples, the tendency to
drunkenness--a failing which, according to the traditions of the
sixth century, was the cause of their disasters--is due to this
invincible need of illusion. Do not say that it is an appetite for
gross enjoyment; never has there been a people more sober and more
alien to all sensuality. No, the Bretons sought in mead what Owen,
St. Brandan, and Peredur sought in their own way,--the vision of the
invisible world. To this day in Ireland drunkenness forms a part of
all Saint's Day festivals--that is to say, the festivals which best
have retained their national and popular aspect.

Thence arises the profound sense of the future and of the eternal
destinies of his race, which has ever borne up the Cymry, and kept
him young still beside his conquerors who have grown old. Thence
that dogma of the resurrection of the heroes, which appears to have
been one of those that Christianity found most difficulty in rooting
out. Thence Celtic Messianism, that belief in a future avenger who
shall restore Cambria, and deliver her out of the hands of her
oppressors, like the mysterious Leminok promised by Merlin, the Lez-
Breiz of the Armoricans, the Arthur of the Welsh. [Footnote: M.
Augustin Thierry has finely remarked that the renown attaching to
Welsh prophecies in the Middle Ages was due to their steadfastness
in affirming the future of their race. (Histoire de la Conquete
d'Angleterre. )] The hand that arose from the mere, when the sword of
Arthur fell therein, that seized it, and brandished it thrice, is
the hope of the Celtic races. It is thus that little peoples dowered
with imagination revenge themselves on their conquerors. Feeling
themselves to be strong inwardly and weak outwardly, they protest,
they exult; and such a strife unloosing their might, renders them
capable of miracles. Nearly all great appeals to the supernatural
are due to peoples hoping against all hope. Who shall say what in
our own times has fermented in the bosom of the most stubborn, the
most powerless of nationalities--Poland? Israel in humiliation
dreamed of the spiritual conquest of the world, and the dream has
come to pass.

II

At a first glance the literature of Wales is divided into three
perfectly distinct distinct branches: the bardic or lyric, which
shines forth in splendour in the sixth century by the works of
Taliessin, of Aneurin, and of Liware'h Hen, and continues through an
uninterrupted series of imitations up to modern times; the
Mabinogion, or literature of romance, fixed towards the twelfth
century, but linking themselves in the groundwork of their ideas
with the remotest ages of the Celtic genius; finally, an
ecclesiastical and legendary literature, impressed with a distinct
stamp of its own. These three literatures seem to have existed side
by side, almost without knowledge of one another. The bards, proud
of their solemn rhetoric, held in disdain the popular tales, the
form of which they considered careless; on the other hand, both
bards and romancers appear to have had few relations with the
clergy; and one at times might be tempted to suppose that they
ignored the existence of Christianity. To our thinking it is in the
Mabinogion that the true expression of the Celtic genius is to be
sought; and it is surprising that so curious a literature, the
source of nearly all the romantic creations of Europe, should have
remained unknown until our own days. The cause is doubtless to be
ascribed to the dispersed state of the Welsh manuscripts, pursued
till last century by the English, as seditious books compromising
those who possessed them. Often too they fell into hands of ignorant
owners whose caprice or ill-will sufficed to keep them from critical
research.

The Mabinogion have been preserved for us in two principal
documents--one of the thirteenth century from the library of
Hengurt, belonging to the Vaughan family; the other dating from the
fourteenth century, known under the name of the Red Book of Hergest,
and now in Jesus College, Oxford. No doubt it was some such
collection that charmed the weary hours of the hapless Leolin in the
Tower of London, and was burned after his condemnation, with the
other Welsh books which had been the companions of his captivity.
Lady Charlotte Guest has based her edition on the Oxford manuscript;
it cannot be sufficiently regretted that paltry considerations have
caused her to be refused the use of the earlier manuscript, of which
the later appears to be only a copy. Regrets are redoubled when one
knows that several Welsh texts, which were seen and copied fifty
years ago, have now disappeared. It is in the presence of facts such
as these that one comes to believe that revolutions--in general so
destructive of the works of the past--are favourable to the
preservation of literary monuments, by compelling their
concentration in great centres, where their existence, as well as
their publicity, is assured.

The general tone of the Mabinogion is rather romantic than epic.
Life is treated naively and not too emphatically. The hero's
individuality is limitless. We have free and noble natures acting in
all their spontaneity. Each man appears as a kind of demi-god
characterised by a supernatural gift. This gift is nearly always
connected with some miraculous object, which in some measure is the
personal seal of him who possesses it. The inferior classes, which
this people of heroes necessarily supposes beneath it, scarcely show
themselves, except in the exercise of some trade, for practising
which they are held in high esteem. The somewhat complicated
products of human industry are regarded as living beings, and in
their manner endowed with magical properties. A multiplicity of
celebrated objects have proper names, such as the drinking-cup, the
lance, the sword, and the shield of Arthur; the chess-board of
Gwendolen, on which the black pieces played of their own accord
against the white; the horn of Bran Galed, where one found whatever
liquor one desired; the chariot of Morgan, which directed itself to
the place to which one wished to go; the pot of Tyrnog, which would
not cook when meat for a coward was put into it; the grindstone of
Tudwal, which would only sharpen brave men's swords; the coat of
Padarn, which none save a noble could don; and the mantle of Tegan,
which no woman could put upon herself were she not above reproach.
[Footnote: Here may be recognised the origin of trial by court
mantle, one of the most interesting episodes in Lancelot of the
Lake. ] The animal is conceived in a still more individual way; it
has a proper name, personal qualities, and a role which it develops
at its own will and with full consciousness. The same hero appears
as at once man and animal, without it being possible to trace the
line of demarcation between the two natures.

The tale of Kilhwch and Olwen, the most extraordinary of the
Mabinogion, deals with Arthur's struggle against the wild-boar king
Twrch Trwyth, who with his seven cubs holds in check all the heroes
of the Round Table. The adventures of the three hundred ravens of
Kerverhenn similarly form the subject of the Dream of Rhonabwy. The
idea of moral merit and demerit is almost wholly absent from all
these compositions. There are wicked beings who insult ladies, who
tyrannise over their neighbours, who only find pleasure in evil
because such is their nature; but it does not appear that they incur
wrath on that account. Arthur's knights pursue them, not as
criminals but as mischievous fellows. All other beings are perfectly
good and just, but more or less richly gifted. This is the dream of
an amiable and gentle race which looks upon evil as being the work
of destiny, and not a product of the human conscience. All nature is
enchanted, and fruitful as imagination itself in indefinitely varied
creations. Christianity rarely discloses itself; although at times
its proximity can be felt, it alters in no respect the purely
natural surroundings in which everything takes place. A bishop
figures at table beside Arthur, but his function is strictly limited
to blessing the dishes. The Irish saints, who at one time present
themselves to give their benediction to Arthur and receive favours
at his hands, are portrayed as a race of men vaguely known and
difficult to understand. No mediaeval literature held itself further
removed from all monastic influence. We evidently must suppose that
the Welsh bards and story-tellers lived in a state of great
isolation from the clergy, and had their culture and traditions
quite apart.

The charm of the Mabinogion principally resides in the amiable
serenity of the Celtic mind, neither sad nor gay, ever in suspense
between a smile and a tear. We have in them the simple recital of a
child, unwitting of any distinction between the noble and the
common; there is something of that softly animated world, of that
calm and tranquil ideal to which Ariosto's stanzas transport us. The
chatter of the later mediaeval French and German imitators can give
no idea of this charming manner of narration. The skilful Chretien
de Troyes himself remains in this respect far below the Welsh story-
tellers, and as for Wolfram of Eschenbach, it must be avowed that
the joy of the first discovery has carried German critics too far in
the exaggeration of his merits. He loses himself in interminable
descriptions, and almost completely ignores the art of his recital.

What strikes one at a first glance in the imaginative compositions
of the Celtic races, above all when they are contrasted with those
of the Teutonic races, is the extreme mildness of manners pervading
them. There are none of those frightful vengeances which fill the
Edda and the Niebelungen. Compare the Teutonic with the Gaelic
hero,--Beowulf with Peredur, for example. What a difference there
is! In the one all the horror of disgusting and blood-embrued
barbarism, the drunkenness of carnage, the disinterested taste, if I
may say so, for destruction and death; in the other a profound sense
of justice, a great height of personal pride it is true, but also a
great capacity for devotion, an exquisite loyalty. The tyrannical
man, the monster, the Black Man, find a place here like the
Lestrigons and the Cyclops of Homer only to inspire horror by
contrast with softer manners; they are almost what the wicked man is
in the naive imagination of a child brought up by a mother in the
ideas of a gentle and pious morality. The primitive man of Teutonism
is revolting by his purposeless brutality, by a love of evil that
only gives him skill and strength in the service of hatred and
injury. The Cymric hero on the other hand, even in his wildest
flights, seems possessed by habits of kindness and a warm sympathy
with the weakv. Sympathy indeed is one of the deepest feelings among
the Celtic peoples. Even Judas is not denied a share of their pity.
St. Brandan found him upon a rock in the midst of the Polar seas;
once a week he passes a day there to refresh himself from the fires
of hell. A cloak that he had given to a beggar is hung before him,
and tempers his sufferings.

If Wales has a right to be proud of her Mabinogion, she has not less
to felicitate herself in having found a translator truly worthy of
interpreting them. For the proper understanding of these original
beauties there was needed a delicate appreciation of Welsh
narration, and an intelligence of the naive order, qualities of
which an erudite translator would with difficulty have been capable.
To render these gracious imaginings of a people so eminently dowered
with feminine tact, the pen of a woman was necessary. Simple,
animated, without effort and without vulgarity, Lady Guest's
translation is a faithful mirror of the original Cymric. Even
supposing that, as regards philology, the labours of this noble
Welsh lady be destined to receive improvement, that does not prevent
her book from for ever remaining a work of erudition and highly
distinguished taste. [Footnote: M. de la Villemarque published in
1843 under the title of Cantes populaires des anciens Bretons, a
French translation of the narratives that Guest had already
presented in English at that time. ]

The Mabinogion, or at least the writings which Lady Guest thought
she ought to include under this common name, divide themselves into
two perfectly distinct classes--some connected exclusively with the
two peninsulas of Wales and Cornwall, and relating to the heroic
personality of Arthur; the others alien to Arthur, having for their
scene not only the parts of England that have remained Cymric, but
the whole of Great Britain, and leading us back by the persons and
traditions mentioned in them to the later years of the Roman
occupation. The second class, of greater antiquity than the first,
at least on the ground of subject, is also distinguished by a much
more mythological character, a bolder use of the miraculous, an
enigmatical form, a style full of alliteration and plays upon words.
Of this number are the tales of Pwyll, of Bramwen, of Manawyddan, of
Math the son of Mathonwy, the Dream of the Emperor Maximus, the
story of Llud and Llewelys, and the legend of Taliessin. To the
Arthurian cycle belong the narratives of Owen, of Geraint, of
Peredur, of Kilhwch and Olwen, and the Dream of Rhonabwy. It is also
to be remarked that the two last-named narratives have a
particularly antique character. In them Arthur dwells in Cornwall,
and not as in the others at Caerleon on the Usk. In them he appears
with an individual character, hunting and taking a personal part in
warfare, while in the more modern tales he is only an emperor all-
powerful and impassive, a truly sluggard hero, around whom a pleiad
of active heroes groups itself. The Mabinogi of Kilhwch and Olwen,
by its entirely primitive aspect, by the part played in it by the
wild-boar in conformity to the spirit of Celtic mythology, by the
wholly supernatural and magical character of the narration, by
innumerable allusions the sense of which escapes us, forms a cycle
by itself. It represents for us the Cymric conception in all its
purity, before it had been modified by the introduction of any
foreign element. Without attempting here to analyse this curious
poem, I should like by some extracts to make its antique aspect and
high originality apparent.

Kilhwch, the son of Kilydd, prince of Kelyddon, having heard some
one mention the name of Olwen, daughter of Yspaddaden Penkawr, falls
violently in love, without having ever seen her. He goes to find
Arthur, that he may ask for his aid in the difficult undertaking
which he meditates; in point of fact, he does not know in what
country the fair one of his affection dwells. Yspaddaden is besides
a frightful tyrant who suffers no man to go from his castle alive,
and whose death is linked by destiny to the marriage of his
daughter. [Footnote: The idea of making the death of the father the
condition of possession of the daughter is to be found in several
romances of the Breton cycle, in Lancelot for example. ] Arthur
grants Kilhwch some of his most valiant comrades in arms to assist
him in this enterprise. After wonderful adventures the knights
arrive at the castle of Yspaddaden, and succeed in seeing the young
maiden of Kilhwch's dream. Only after three days of persistent
struggle do they manage to obtain a response from Olwen's father,
who attaches his daughter's hand to conditions apparently impossible
of realisation. The performance of these trials makes a long chain
of adventures, the framework of a veritable romantic epic which has
come to us in a very fragmentary form. Of the thirty-eight
adventures imposed on Kilhwch the manuscript used by Lady Guest only
relates seven or eight. I choose at random one of these narratives,
which appears to me fitted to give an idea of the whole composition.
It deals with the finding of Mabon the son of Modron, who was
carried away from his mother three days after his birth, and whose
deliverance is one of the labours exacted of Kilhwch.

"His followers said unto Arthur, 'Lord, go thou home; thou canst not
proceed with thy host in quest of such small adventures as these. '
Then said Arthur, 'It were well for thee, Gwrhyr Gwalstawd
Ieithoedd, to go upon this quest, for thou knowest all languages,
and art familiar with those of the birds and the beasts. Thou,
Eidoel, oughtest likewise to go with my men in search of thy cousin.
And as for you, Kai and Bedwyr, I have hope of whatever adventure ye
are in quest of, that ye will achieve it. Achieve ye this adventure
for me. '"

They went forward until they came to the Ousel of Cilgwri. And
Gwrhyr adjured her for the sake of Heaven, saying, "Tell me if thou
knowest aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken when three
nights old from between his mother and the wall. " And the Ousel
answered, "When I first came here there was a smith's anvil in this
place, and I was then a young bird; and from that time no work has
been done upon it, save the pecking of my beak every evening, and
now there is not so much as the size of a nut remaining thereof; yet
all the vengeance of Heaven be upon me, if during all that time I
have ever heard of the man for whom you enquire. Nevertheless I will
do that which is right, and that which it is fitting I should do for
an embassy from Arthur. There is a race of animals who were formed
before me, and I will be your guide to them. "

So they proceeded to the place where was the Stag of Redynvre. "Stag
of Redynvre, behold we are come to thee, an embassy from Arthur, for
we have not heard of any animal older than thou. Say, knowest thou
aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken from his mother when
three nights old? " The Stag said, "When first I came hither there
was a plain all around me, without any trees save one oak sapling,
which grew up to be an oak with an hundred branches. And that oak
has since perished, so that now nothing remains of it but the
withered stump; and from that day to this I have been here, yet have
I never heard of the man for whom you enquire. Nevertheless, being
an embassy from Arthur, I will be your guide to the place where
there is an animal which was formed before I was. "

So they proceeded to the place where was the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd.
"Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, here is an embassy from Arthur; knowest thou
aught of Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken after three nights
from his mother? " "If I knew I would tell you. When first I came
hither, the wide valley you see was a wooded glen. And a race of men
came and rooted it up. And there grew there a second wood; and this
wood is the third. My wings, are they not withered stumps? Yet all
this time, even until to-day, I have never heard of the man for whom
you enquire. Nevertheless I will be the guide of Arthur's embassy
until you come to the place where is the oldest animal in the world,
and the one that has travelled most, the Eagle of Gwern Abwy. "

Gwrhyr said, "Eagle of Gwern Abwy, we have come to thee an embassy
from Arthur, to ask thee if thou knowest aught of Mabon the son of
Modron, who was taken from his mother when he was three nights old. "
The Eagle said, "I have been here for a great space of time, and
when I first came hither there was a rock here, from the top of
which I pecked at the stars every evening; and now it is not so much
as a span high. From that day to this I have been here, and I have
never heard of the man for whom you enquire, except once when I went
in search of food as far as Llyn Llyw. And when I came there, I
struck my talons into a salmon, thinking he would serve me as food
for a long time. But he drew me into the deep, and I was scarcely
able to escape from him. After that I went with my whole kindred to
attack him, and to try to destroy him, but he sent messengers, and
made peace with me; and came and besought me to take fifty fish
spears out of his back. Unless he know something of him whom you
seek, I cannot tell who may. However, I will guide you to the place
where he is. "

So they went thither; and the Eagle said, "Salmon of Llyn Llyw, I
have come to thee with an embassy from Arthur, to ask thee if thou
knowest aught concerning Mabon the son of Modron, who was taken away
at three nights old from his mother. " "As much as I know I will tell
thee. With every tide I go along the river upwards, until I come
near to the walls of Gloucester, and there have I found such wrong
as I never found elsewhere; and to the end that ye may give credence
thereto, let one of you go thither upon each of my two shoulders. "
So Kai and Gwrhyr Gwalstawd Ieithoedd went upon the shoulders of the
salmon, and they proceeded until they came unto the wall of the
prison, and they heard a great wailing and lamenting from the
dungeon. Said Gwrhyr, "Who is it that laments in this house of
stone? " "Alas there is reason enough for whoever is here to lament.
It is Mabon the son of Modron who is here imprisoned; and no
imprisonment was ever so grievous as mine, neither that of Lludd
Llaw Ereint, nor that of Greid the son of Eri. " "Hast thou hope of
being released for gold or for silver, or for any gifts of wealth,
or through battle and fighting? " "By fighting will whatever I may
gain be obtained. "

We shall not follow the Cymric hero through trials the result of
which can be foreseen. What, above all else, is striking in these
strange legends is the part played by animals, transformed by the
Welsh imagination into intelligent beings. No race conversed so
intimately as did the Celtic race with the lower creation, and
accorded it so large a share of moral life. [Footnote: See
especially the narratives of Nennius, and of Giraldus Cambrensis. In
them animals have at least as important a part as men. ] The close
association of man and animal, the fictions so dear to mediaeval
poetry of the Knight of the Lion, the Knight of the Falcon, the
Knight of the Swan, the vows consecrated by the presence of birds of
noble repute, are equally Breton imaginings. Ecclesiastical
literature itself presents analogous features; gentleness towards
animals informs all the legends of the saints of Brittany and
Ireland. One day St. Kevin fell asleep, while he was praying at his
window with outstretched arms; and a swallow perceiving the open
hand of the venerable monk, considered it an excellent place wherein
to make her nest. The saint on awaking saw the mother sitting upon
her eggs, and, loth to disturb her, waited for the little ones to be
hatched before he arose from his knees.

This touching sympathy was derived from the singular vivacity with
which the Celtic races have inspired their feeling for nature. Their
mythology is nothing more than a transparent naturalism, not that
anthropomorphic naturalism of Greece and India, in which the forces
of the universe, viewed as living beings and endowed with
consciousness, tend more and more to detach themselves from physical
phenomena, and to become moral beings; but in some measure a
realistic naturalism, the love of nature for herself, the vivid
impression of her magic, accompanied by the sorrowful feeling that
man knows, when, face to face with her, he believes that he hears
her commune with him concerning his origin and his destiny. The
legend of Merlin mirrors this feeling. Seduced by a fairy of the
woods, he flies with her and becomes a savage. Arthur's messengers
come upon him as he is singing by the side of a fountain; he is led
back again to court; but the charm carries him away. He returns to
his forests, and this time for ever. Under a thicket of hawthorn
Vivien has built him a magical prison. There he prophesies the
future of the Celtic races; he speaks of a maiden of the woods, now
visible and now unseen, who holds him captive by her spells. Several
Arthurian legends are impressed with the same character. Arthur
himself in popular belief became, as it were, a woodland spirit.
"The foresters on their nightly round by the light of the moon,"
says Gervais of Tilbury, [Footnote: An English chronicler of the
twelfth century. ] "often hear a great sound as of horns, and meet
bands of huntsmen; when they are asked whence they come, these
huntsmen make reply that they are of King Arthur's following. "
[Footnote: This manner of explaining all the unknown noises of the
wood by Arthur's Hunting is still to be found in several districts.
To understand properly the cult of nature, and, if I may say so, of
landscape among the Celts, see Gildas and Nennius, pp. 131, 136,
137, etc. (Edit. San Marte, Berlin. 1884);] Even the French
imitators of the Breton romances keep an impression--although a
rather insipid one--of the attraction exercised by nature on the
Celtic imagination. Elaine, the heroine of Lancelot, the ideal of
Breton perfection, passes her life with her companions in a garden,
in the midst of flowers which she tends. Every flower culled by her
hands is at the instant restored to life; and the worshippers of her
memory are under an obligation, when they cut a flower, to sow
another in its place.

The worship of forest, and fountain, and stone is to be explained by
this primitive naturalism, which all the Councils of the Church held
in Brittany united to proscribe. The stone, in truth, seems the
natural symbol of the Celtic races. It is an immutable witness that
has no death. The animal, the plant, above all the human figure,
only express the divine life under a determinate form; the stone on
the contrary, adapted to receive all forms, has been the fetish of
peoples in their childhood. Pausanias saw, still standing erect, the
thirty square stones of Pharse, each bearing the name of a divinity.
The men-hir to be met with over the whole surface of the ancient
world, what is it but the monument of primitive humanity, a living
witness of its faith in Heaven? [Footnote: It is, however, doubtful
whether the monuments known in France at Celtic (men-hir. dot-men,
etc. ) are the work of the Celts. With M. Worsaae and the Copenhagen
archaeologists, I am inclined to think that these monuments belong
to a more ancient humanity. Never, in fact, has any branch of the
Indo-European race built in this fashion. (See two articles by M.
Merimee in L'Athenaum franfais, Sept. 11th, 1852, and April 25th,
1853. )]

It has frequently been observed that the majority of popular beliefs
still extant in our different provinces are of Celtic origin.