He loves bright colours, he easily becomes audacious,
overcrowing, full of fanfaronade. The German, say the physiologists,
has the larger volume of intestines (and who that has ever seen a
German at a table-d'hote will not readily believe this?), the
Frenchman has the more developed organs of respiration. That is just
the expansive, eager Celtic nature; the head in the air, snuffing and
snorting; A PROUD LOOK AND A HIGH STOMACH, as the Psalmist says, but
without any such settled savage temper as the Psalmist seems to
impute by those words. For good and for bad, the Celtic genius is
more airy and unsubstantial, goes less near the ground, than the
German. The Celt is often called sensual; but it is not so much the
vulgar satisfactions of sense that attract him as emotion and
excitement; he is truly, as I began by saying, sentimental.
Sentimental,--ALWAYS READY TO REACT AGAINST THE DESPOTISM OF FACT;
that is the description a great friend {85} of the Celt gives of him;
and it is not a bad description of the sentimental temperament; it
lets us into the secret of its dangers and of its habitual want of
success. Balance, measure, and patience, these are the eternal
conditions, even supposing the happiest temperament to start with, of
high success; and balance, measure, and patience are just what the
Celt has never had.
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