Books: Imaginations and Reveries
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(A.E.) George William Russell >> Imaginations and Reveries
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Working so, we create the conditions in which the spirit of the
community grows strong. We create the true communal idea, which
the Socialists miss in their dream of a vast amalgamation of whole
nationalities in one great commercial undertaking. The true idea
of the clan or commune or tribe is to have in it as many people as
will give it strength and importance, and so few people that a
personal tie may be established between them. Humanity has always
grouped itself instinctively in this way. It did so in the ancient
clans and rural communes, and it does so in the parishes and
co-operative associations. If they were larger they would lose
the sense of unity. If they were smaller they would be too feeble
for effectual work, and could not take over the affairs of their
district. A rural commune or co-operative community ought to have,
to a large extent, the character of a nation. It should manufacture
for its members all things which it profitably can manufacture for
them, employing its own workmen, carpenters, bootmakers, makers and
menders of farming equipment, saddlery, harness, etc. It should
aim at feeding its members and their families cheaply and well, as
far as possible, out of the meat and grain produced in the district.
It should have a mill to grind their grain, a creamery to manufacture
their butter; or where certain enterprises like a bacon factory
are too great for it, it should unite with other co-operative
communities to furnish out such an enterprise. It should sell for
the members their produce, and buy for them their requirements,
and hold for them labor-saving machinery. It should put aside a
certain portion of its profits every year for the creation of halls,
libraries, places for recreation and games, and it should pursue
this plan steadily with the purpose of giving its members every
social and educational advantage which the civilization of their
time affords. It should have its councils or village parliaments,
where improvements and new ventures could be discussed. Such a
community would soon generate a passionate devotion to its own
ideals and interests among the members, who would feel how their
fortunes rose with the fortunes of the associations of which they
were all members. It would kindle and quicken the intellect of
every person in the community. It would create the atmosphere in
which national genius would emerge and find opportunities for its
activity. The clan ought to be the antechamber of the nation and
the training ground for its statesmen. What opportunity leadership
in the councils of such a rural community would give to the best
minds! The man of social genius at present finds an unorganized
community, and he does not know how to affect his fellow-citizens.
A man might easily despair of affecting the destinies of a nation
of forty million people, but yet start with eagerness to build up
a kingdom of the size of Sligo, and shape it nearer to the heart's
desire. The organization of the rural population of Ireland in
co-operative associations will provide the instrument ready to the
hand of the social reformer.
Some associations will be more dowered with ability than others,
but one will learn from another, and a vast network of living,
progressive organizations will cover rural Ireland, democratic in
constitution and governed by the aristocracy of intellect and character.
Such associations would have great economic advantages in that they
would be self-reliant and self-contained, and would be less subject
to fluctuation in their prosperity brought about by national
disasters and commercial crises than the present unorganized rural
communities are. They would have all their business under local
control; and, aiming at feeding, clothing, and manufacturing
locally from local resources as far as possible, the slumps in
foreign trade, the shortage in supplies, the dislocations of commerce
would affect them but little. They would make the community wealthier.
Every step towards this organization already taken in Ireland has
brought with it increased prosperity, and the towns benefit by
increased purchasing power on the part of these rural associations.
New arts and industries would spring up under the aegis of the local
associations. Here we should find the weaving of rugs, there the
manufacture of toys, elsewhere the women would be engaged in
embroidery or lace-making, and, perhaps, everywhere we might get a
revival of the old local industry of weaving homespuns. We are
dreaming of nothing impossible, nothing which has not been done
somewhere already, nothing which we could not do here in Ireland.
True, it cannot be done all at once, but if we get the idea clearly
in our minds of the building up of a rural civilization in Ireland,
we can labor at it with the grand persistence of medieval burghers
in their little towns, where one generation laid down the foundations
of a great cathedral, and saw only in hope and faith the gorgeous
glooms over altar and sanctuary, and the blaze and flame of stained
glass, where apostles, prophets, and angelic presences were pictured
in fire: and the next generation raised high the walls, and only
the third generation saw the realization of what their grandsires
had dreamed. We in Ireland should not live only from day to day,
for the day only, like the beasts in the field, but should think
of where all this long cavalcade of the Gael is tending, and how
and in what manner their tents will be pitched in the evening of
their generation. A national purpose is the most unconquerable
and victorious of all things on earth. It can raise up Babylons
from the sands of the desert, and make imperial civilizations spring
from out a score of huts, and after it has wrought its will it can
leave monuments that seem as everlasting a portion of nature as
the rocks. The Pyramids and the Sphinx in the sands of Egypt have
seemed to humanity for centuries as much a portion of nature as
Erigal, or Benbulben, or Slieve Gullion have seemed a portion of
nature to our eyes in Ireland.
We must have some purpose or plan in building up an Irish
civilization. No artist takes up his paints and brushes and begins
to work on his canvas without a clear idea burning in his brain of
what he has to do, else were his work all smudges. Does anyone
think that out of all these little cabins and farmhouses dotting
the green of Ireland there will come harmonious effort to a common
end without organization and set purpose? The idea and plan of a
great rural civilization must shine like a burning lamp in the
imagination of the youth of Ireland, or we shall only be at cross-
purposes and end in little fatuities. We are very fond in Ireland
of talking of Ireland a nation. The word "nation" has a kind of
satisfying sound, but I am afraid it is an empty word with no rich
significance to most who use it. The word "laboratory" has as fine
a sound, but only the practical scientist has a true conception of
what may take place there, what roar of strange forces, what mingling
of subtle elements, what mystery and magnificence in atomic life.
The word without the idea is like the purse without the coin, the
skull without the soul, or any other sham or empty deceit. Nations
are not built up by the repetition of words, but by the organizing
of intellectual forces. If any of my readers would like to know
what kind of thought goes to the building up of a great nation,
let him read the life of Alexander Hamilton by Oliver. To that
extraordinary man the United States owe their constitution, almost
their existence. To him, far more than to Washington, the idea,
plan, shape of all that marvelous dominion owes its origin and
character. He seemed to hold in his brain, while America was yet
a group of half-barbaric settlements, the idea of what it might
become. He laid down the plans, the constitution, the foreign policy,
the trade policy, the relation of State to State, and it is only
within the last few years almost, that America has realized that she
had in Hamilton a supreme political and social intelligence, the
true fountain-head of what she has since become.
We have not half a continent to deal with, but size matters nothing.
The Russian Empire, which covers half Europe, and stretches over
the Ural Mountains to the Pacific, would weigh light as a feather
in the balance if we compare its services to humanity with those
of the little State of Attica, which was no larger than Tipperary.
Every State which has come to command the admiration of the world
has had clearly conceived ideals which it realized before it went
the way which all empires, even the greatest, must go; becoming
finally a legend, a fable, or a symbol. We have to lay down the
foundations of a new social order in Ireland, and, if the
possibilities of it are realized, our thousand years of sorrow
and darkness may be followed by as long a cycle of happy effort
and ever-growing prosperity. We shall want all these plans whether
we are ruled from Westminster or College Green. Without an
imaginative conception of what kind of civilization we wish to
create, the best government from either quarter will never avail
to lift us beyond national mediocrity. I write for those who have
joined the ranks of the co-operators without perhaps realizing all
that the movement meant, or all that it tended to. Because we hold
in our hearts and keep holy there the vision of a great future, I
have fought passionately for the entire freedom of our movement
from external control, lest the meddling of politicians or official
persons without any inspiration should deflect, for some petty
purpose or official gratification, the strength of that current
which was flowing and gathering strength unto the realization of
great ideals. Every country has its proportion of little souls
which could find ample room on a threepenny bit, and be majestically
housed in a thimble, who follow out some little minute practice in
an ecstasy of self-satisfaction, seeking some little job which is
the El Dorado of their desires as if there were naught else, as if
humanity were not going from the Great Deep to the Great Deep of
Deity, with wind and water, fire and earth, stars and sun, lordly
companions for it on its path to a divine destiny. We have our
share of these in Ireland in high and low places, but I do not
write for them. This essay is for those who are working at laying
deep the foundations of a new social order, to hearten them with
some thought of what their labor may bring to Ireland. I welcome
to this work the United Irishwomen. As one of their poetesses
has said in a beautiful song, the services of women to Ireland in
the past have been the services of mourners to the stricken. But
for today and tomorrow we need hope and courage and gaiety, and I
repeat for them the last passionate words of her verse:
Rise to your feet, O daughters, rise,
Our mother still is young and fair.
Let the world look into your eyes
And see her beauty shining there.
Grant of that beauty but one ray,
Heroes shall leap from every hill;
Today shall be as yesterday,
The red blood burns in Ireland still.
THOUGHTS FOR A CONVENTION
1. There are moments in history when by the urgency of circumstance
everyone in a country is drawn from normal pursuits to consider
the affairs of the nation. The merchant is turned from his warehouse,
the bookman from his books, the farmer from his fields, because
they realize that the very foundations of the society, under whose
shelter they were able to carry on their avocation, are being shaken,
and they can no longer be voiceless, or leave it to deputies,
unadvised by them, to arrange national destinies. We are all
accustomed to endure the annoyances and irritations caused by
legislation which is not agreeable to us, and solace ourselves by
remembering that the things which really matter are not affected.
But when the destiny of a nation, the principles by which life is
to be guided are at stake, all are on a level, are equally affected
and are bound to give expression to their opinions. Ireland is in
one of these moments of history. Circumstances with which we are
all familiar and the fever in which the world exists have infected
it, and it is like molten metal the skilled political artificer
might pour into a desirable mould. But if it is not handled rightly,
if any factor is ignored, there may be an explosion which would bring
on us a fate as tragic as anything in our past history. Irishmen
can no longer afford to remain aloof from each other, or to address
each other distantly and defiantly from press or platform, but must
strive to understand each other truly, and to give due weight to
each other's opinions, and, if possible, arrive at a compromise, a
balancing of their diversities, which may save our country from
anarchy and chaos for generations to come.
2. An agreement about Irish Government must be an agreement, not
between two but three Irish parties first of all, and afterwards
with Great Britain. The Premier of a Coalition Cabinet has declared
that there is no measure of self government which Great Britain
would not assent to being set up in Ireland, if Irishmen themselves
could but come to an agreement. Before such a compromise between
Irish parties is possible there must be a clear understanding of
the ideals of these parties, as they are understood by themselves,
and not as they are presented in party controversy by special
pleaders whose object too often is to pervert or discredit the
principles and actions of opponents, a thing which is easy to do
because all parties, even the noblest, have followers who do them
disservice by ignorant advocacy or excited action. If we are to
unite Ireland we can only do so by recognizing what truly are the
principles each party stands for, and will not forsake, and for which,
if necessary they will risk life. True understanding is to see ideas
as they are held by men between themselves and Heaven; and in this
mood I will try, first of all, to understand the position of Unionists,
Sinn Feiners and Constitutional Nationalists as they have been
explained to me by the best minds among them, those who have induced
others of their countrymen to accept those ideals. When this is done
we will see if compromise, a balancing of diversities be not possible
in an Irish State where all that is essential in these varied ideals
may be harmonized and retained.
3. I will take first of all the position of Unionists. They are,
many of them, the descendants of settlers who by their entrance
into Ireland broke up the Gaelic uniformity and introduced the speech,
the thoughts, characteristic of another race. While they have grown
to love their country as much as any of Gaelic origin, and their
peculiarities have been modified by centuries of life in Ireland
and by intermarriage, so that they are much more akin to their
fellow-countrymen in mind and manner than they are to any other
people, they still retain habits, beliefs and traditions from which
they will not part. They form a class economically powerful. They
have openness and energy of character, great organizing power and
a mastery over materials, all qualities invaluable in an Irish State.
In North-East Ulster, where they are most homogeneous they conduct
the affairs of their cities with great efficiency, carrying on an
international trade not only with Great Britain but with the rest
of the world. They have made these industries famous. They
believe that their prosperity is in large measure due to their
acceptance of the Union, that it would be lessened if they threw
in their lot with the other Ireland and accepted its ideals, that
business which now goes to their shipyards and factories would
cease if they were absorbed in a self-governing Ireland whose
spokesmen had an unfortunate habit of nagging their neighbors and
of conveying the impression that they are inspired by race hatred.
They believe that an Irish legislature would be controlled by a
majority, representatives mainly of small farmers, men who had no
knowledge of affairs, or of the peculiar needs of Ulster industry,
or the intricacy of the problems involved in carrying on an
international trade; that the religious ideas of the majority
would be so favored in education and government that the favoritism
would amount to religious oppression. They are also convinced
that no small country in the present state of the world can really
be independent, that such only exist by sufferance of their mighty
neighbors, and must be subservient in trade policy and military
policy to retain even a nominal freedom; and that an independent
Ireland would by its position be a focus for the intrigues of
powers hostile to Great Britain, and if it achieved independence
Great Britain in self protection would be forced to conquer it
again. They consider that security for industry and freedom for
the individual can best be preserved in Ireland by the maintenance
of the Union, and that the world spirit is with the great empires.
4. The second political group may be described as the spiritual
inheritors of the more ancient race in Ireland. They regard the
preservation of their nationality as a sacred charge, themselves
as a conquered people owing no allegiance to the dominant race.
They cannot be called traitors to it because neither they nor their
predecessors have ever admitted the right of another people to
govern them against their will. They are inspired by an ancient
history, a literature stretching beyond the Christian era, a national
culture and distinct national ideals which they desire to manifest
in a civilization which shall not be an echo or imitation of any
other. While they do not depreciate the worth of English culture
or its political system they are as angry at its being imposed on
them as a young man with a passion for art would be if his guardian
insisted on his adopting another profession and denied him any
chance of manifesting his own genius. Few hatreds equal those
caused by the denial or obstruction of national aptitudes. Many
of those who fought in the last Irish insurrection were fighters
not merely for a political change but were rather desperate and
despairing champions of a culture which they held was being stifled
from infancy in Irish children in the schools of the nation. They
believe that the national genius cannot manifest itself in a
civilization and is not allowed to manifest itself while the Union
persists. They wish Ireland to be as much itself as Japan, and as
free to make its own choice of political principles, its culture
and social order, and to develop its industries unfettered by the
trade policy of their neighbors. Their mood is unconquerable, and
while often overcome it has emerged again and again in Irish history,
and it has perhaps more adherents today than at any period since
the Act of Union, and this has been helped on by the incarnation
of the Gaelic spirit in the modem Anglo-Irish literature, and a
host of brilliant poets, dramatists and prose writers who have won
international recognition, and have increased the dignity of spirit
and the self-respect of the followers of this tradition. They
assert that the Union kills the soul of the people; that empires
do not permit the intensive cultivation of human life: that they
destroy the richness and variety of existence by the extinction
of peculiar and unique gifts, and the substitution therefor of a
culture which has its value mainly for the people who created it,
but is as alien to our race as the mood of the scientist is to
the artist or poet.
5. The third group occupies a middle position between those who
desire the perfecting of the Union and those whose claim is for
complete independence: and because they occupy a middle position,
and have taken coloring from the extremes between which they exist
they have been exposed to the charge of insincerity, which is unjust
so far as the best minds among them are concerned. They have aimed
at a middle course, not going far enough on one side or another to
secure the confidence of the extremists. They have sought to
maintain the connection with the empire, and at the same time to
acquire an Irish control over administration and legislation. They
have been more practical than ideal, and to their credit must be
placed the organizing of the movements which secured most of the
reforms in Ireland since the Union, such as religious equality,
the acts securing to farmers fair rents and fixity of tenure, the
wise and salutary measures making possible the transfer of land
from landlord to tenant, facilities for education at popular
universities, the laborers' acts and many others. They are a
practical party taking what they could get, and because they could
show ostensible results they have had a greater following in
Ireland than any other party. This is natural because the average
man in all countries is a realist. But this reliance on material
results to secure support meant that they must always show results,
or the minds of their countrymen veered to those ultimates and
fundamentals which await settlement here as they do in all
civilizations. As in the race with Atalanta the golden apples
had to be thrown in order to win the race. The intellect of
Ireland is now fixed on fundamentals, and the compromise this middle
party is able to offer does not make provision for the ideals of
either of the extremists, and indeed meets little favor anywhere
in a country excited by recent events in world history, where
revolutionary changes are expected and a settlement far more in
accord with fundamental principles.
6. It is possible that many of the rank and file of these parties
will not at first agree with the portraits painted of their opponents,
and that is because the special pleaders of the press, who in Ireland
are, as a rule, allowed little freedom to state private convictions,
have come to regard themselves as barristers paid to conduct a case,
and have acquired the habit of isolating particular events, the
hasty speech or violent action of individuals in localities, and
of exhibiting these as indicating the whole character of the party
attacked. They misrepresent Irishmen to each other. The Ulster
advocates of the Union, for example, are accustomed to hear from
their advisers that the favorite employment of Irish farmers in
the three southern provinces is cattle driving, if not worse. They
are told that Protestants in these provinces live in fear of their
lives, whereas anybody who has knowledge of the true conditions
knows that, so far from being riotous and unbusinesslike, the
farmers in these provinces have developed a net-work of rural
associations, dairies, bacon factories, agricultural and poultry
societies, etc., doing their business efficiently, applying the
teachings of science in their factories, competing in quality of
output with the very best of the same class of society in Ulster
and obtaining as good prices in the same market. As a matter of
fact this method of organization now largely adopted by Ulster
farmers was initiated in the South. With regard to the charge of
intolerance I do not believe it. Here, as in all other countries,
there are unfortunate souls obsessed by dark powers, whose human
malignity takes the form of religious hatreds, but I believe, and
the thousands of Irish Protestants in the Southern Counties will
affirm it as true that they have nothing to complain of in this
respect. I am sure that in this matter of religious tolerance
these provinces can stand favorable comparison with any country
in the world where there are varieties of religions, even with
Great Britain. I would plead with my Ulster compatriots not to
gaze too long or too credulously into that distorting mirror held up
to them, nor be tempted to take individual action as representative
of the mass. How would they like to have the depth or quality of
spiritual life in their great city represented by the scrawlings
and revilings about the head of the Catholic Church to be found
occasionally on the blank walls of Belfast. If the same method of
distortion by selection of facts was carried out there is not a
single city or nation which could not be made to appear baser than
Sodom or Gomorrah and as deserving of their fate.
7. The Ulster character is better appreciated by Southern Ireland,
and there is little reason to vindicate it against any charges
except the slander that Ulster Unionists do not regard themselves
as Irishmen, and that they have no love for their own country.
Their position is that they are Unionists, not merely because it
is for the good of Great Britain, but because they hold it to be
for the good of Ireland, and it is the Irish argument weighs with
them, and if they were convinced it would be better for Ireland to
be self-governed they would throw in their lot with the rest of
Ireland, which would accept them gladly and greet them as a prodigal
son who had returned, having made, unlike most prodigal sons, a
fortune, and well able to be the wisest adviser in family affairs.
It is necessary to preface what I have to say by way of argument
or remonstrance to Irish parties by words making it clear that I
write without prejudice against any party, and that I do not in
the least underestimate their good qualities or the weight to be
attached to their opinions and ideals. It is the traditional Irish
way, which we have too often forgotten, to notice the good in the
opponent before battling with what is evil. So Maeve, the ancient
Queen of Connacht, looking over the walls of her city of Cruachan
at the Ulster foemen, said of them, "Noble and regal is their
appearance," and her own followers said, "Noble and regal are
those of whom you speak." When we lost the old Irish culture we
lost the tradition of courtesy to each other which lessens the
difficulties of life and makes it possible to conduct controversy
without creating bitter memories.
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