the world began, has overtaken all
ideals which could not get themselves 'accepted by song.' Even as we
drum these poets out we know that they are the only ones worth
reckoning with, and that man cannot support himself upon assurances
that he is the strongest fellow in the world, and the richest, and
owns the biggest house, and pays the biggest rates, and wins whatever
game he plays at, and stands so high in his clothes that while the
Southern Cross rises over his hat-brim it is already broad day on the
seat of his breeches. For that is what it all comes to: and the
sentence upon the man who neglects the warning of these poets, while
he heaps up great possessions, is still, "Thou fool, this night thy
soul shall be required of thee." And where is the national soul you
would choose, at that hasty summons, to present for inspection,
having to stand your trial upon it? Try Park Lane, or run and knock
up the Laureate, and then come and report your success!

Weeks ago I was greatly reproached by a correspondent for misusing
the word 'Celtic,' and informed that to call Mr. Yeats or Mr. Trench
a Celt is a grave abuse of ethnical terms; that a notable percentage
of the names connected with the 'Celtic Revival'--Hyde, Sigerson,
Atkinson, Stokes--are not Celtic at all but Teutonic; that, in short,
I have been following the multitude to speak loosely. Well, I
confess it, and I will confess further that the lax use of the word
'Celt' ill beseems one who has been irritated often enough by the
attempts of well-meaning but muddle-headed people who get hold of
this or that poet and straightly assign this or that quality of his
verse to a certain set of corpuscles in his mixed blood. Although I
believe that my correspondent is too hasty in labelling men's descent
from their names--for the mother has usually some share in producing
a child; although I believe that Mr. Yeats, for instance, inherits
Cornish blood on one side, even if Irish be denied him on the other;
yet the rebuke contains some justice.

Still, I must maintain that these well-meaning theorists err only in
applying a broad distinction with overmuch nicety. There is, after
all, a certain quality in a poem of Blake's, or a prose passage of
Charlotte Bronte's, which a critic is not only unable to ignore, but
which--if he has any 'comparative' sense--he finds himself accounting
for by saying, "This man, or this woman, must be a Celt or have some
admixture of Celtic