No people, therefore,
are so shy, so self-conscious, so embarrassed as the English, because
two natures are mixed in them, and natures which pull them such
different ways. The Germanic part, indeed, triumphs in us, we are a
Germanic people; but not so wholly as to exclude hauntings of
Celtism, which clash with our Germanism, producing, as I believe, our
HUMOUR, neither German nor Celtic, and so affect us that we strike
people as odd and singular, not to be referred to any known type, and
like nothing but ourselves. 'Nearly every Englishman,' says an
excellent and by no means unfriendly observer, George Sand, 'nearly
every Englishman, however good-looking he may be, has always
something singular about him which easily comes to seem comic;--a
sort of typical awkwardness (gaucherie typique) in his looks or
appearance, which hardly ever wears out.' I say this strangeness is
accounted for by the English nature being mixed as we have seen,
while the Latin nature is all of a piece, and so is the German
nature, and the Celtic nature.
It is impossible to go very fast when the matter with which one has
to deal, besides being new and little explored, is also by its nature
so subtle, eluding one's grasp unless one handles it with all
possible delicacy and care. It is in our poetry that the Celtic part
in us has left its trace clearest, and in our poetry I must follow it
before I have done.
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