The Irish Race in the Past and the PresentThébaud, Augustus J.
History
The Irish Race in the Past and the Present
Thébaud, Augustus J.
Ireland -- History
From many of the previous details, the reader will easily see
That the literature of the Celts presented features peculiar to
Their race, and which supposed a mental constitution seldom found
among others. If, in general, the world of letters gives expression
In some degree to social wants and habits, among the Celts this
expression was complete, and argued a peculiar bent of mind given
entirely to traditional lore, and never to philosophical speculations
and subtlety. We see in it two elements remarkable for their
distinctness. First, an extraordinary fondness for facts and
traditions, growing out of the patriarchal origin of society
among them; and from this fondness their mind received a particular
tendency which was averse to theories and utopias. All things
resolved themselves into facts, and they seldom wandered away into
the fields of conjectural conclusions. Hence their extraordinary
adaptation to the truths of the Christian religion, whose dogmas
are all supernatural facts, at once human and divine. Hence have
they ever been kept free from that strange mental activity of other
European races, which has led them into doubt, unbelief, skepticism,
until, in our days, there seem to be no longer any fixed principles
as a substratum for religious and social doctrines.
Secondly, we see in the Celtic race a rare and unique outburst
of fancy, so well expressed in the "_Senchus Mor_," their great law
compilation, wherein it is related, that when St. Patrick had
completed the digest of the laws of the Gael in Ireland, Dubtach,
who was a bard as well as a brehon, "put a thread of poetry
round it." Poetry everywhere, even in a law-book; poetry
inseparable from their thoughts, their speech, their every-day
actions; poetry became for them a reality, an indispensable necessity
of life. This feature is also certainly characteristic of the
Celtic nature.
Hence their literature was inseparable from art; and music and
design gushed naturally from the deepest springs of their souls.
Music has always been the handmaid of Poetry; and in our modern
languages, even, which are so artificial and removed from primitive
enthusiasm and naturalness, no composer of opera would consent to
adapt his inspirations to a prose _libretto_. It was far more so
in primitive times; and it maybe said that in those days poetry
was never composed unless to be sung or played on instruments. But
what has never been seen elsewhere, what Plato dreamed, without
ever hoping to see realized, music in Celtic countries became
really a state institution, and singers and harpers were necessary
officers of princes and kings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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