The name given to the short dark man is usually Iberian; the name given
to the tall fair man who followed him is Celt. The two learnt to live
together in the same country. The conqueror probably looked upon himself
at first as the master of the conquered, then as simply belonging to a
superior race, but gradually the distinction vanished. The language
remained the language of the Celt; it is called an Aryan language, a
language as noble among languages as the Aran is among its hills. It is
still spoken in Wales, in Brittany, in Ireland, in the Highlands of
Scotland, and in the Isle of Man. It was also spoken in Cornwall till
the eighteenth century; and Yorkshire dalesmen still count their sheep in
Welsh. English is another Aryan tongue.
The more mixed a nation is, the more rich its life and the greater its
future. Purity of blood is not a thing to boast of, and no great and
progressive nation comes from one breed of men. Some races have more
imagination than others, or a finer feeling for beauty; others have more
energy and practical wisdom. The best nations have both; and they have
both, probably, because many races have been blended in their making.
There is hardly a parish in Wales in which there are not different types
of faces and different kinds of character.
The wandering of nations has never really stopped. The Celt was followed
by his cousins—the Angle and the Saxon. These, again, were followed by
races still more closely related to them—the Normans and the Danes and
the Flemings. They have all left their mark on Wales and on the Welsh
character.
The migration is still going on. Trace the history of an upland Welsh
parish, and you will find that, in a surprisingly short time, the old
families, high and low, have given place to newcomers. Look into the
trains which carry emigrants from Hull or London to Liverpool on their
way west—they have the blue eyes and yellow hair of those who came two
thousand years ago. But this country is no longer their goal, the great
continent of America has been discovered beyond. Fits of longing for
wandering come over the Welsh periodically, as they came over the
Danes—caused by scarcity of food and density of population, or by a sense
of oppression and a yearning for freedom. An empty stomach sometimes,
and sometimes a fiery imagination, sent a crowd of adventurers to new
lands. And it is thus that every living nation is ever renewing its
youth.
III
ROME
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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