Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian
Kant · en
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.
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