But there is an explanation of all this crudity and violence in
Ireland. For all sorts of reasons, political, social, historical and
religious, the critical faculty has rarely been employed and certainly
has not been developed. Either you are for a thing or you are against
it. Doubt is treated as if it were antagonism. Reluctance to commit
oneself to any scheme however fantastic or ill-considered it may
be, is treated as treason to the national spirit. A man who asserts
his belief in the establishment of an Irish Republic, by force, if
necessary, is an Irishman, even though he be a "dago," and any one who
is doubtful of the feasibility of this proposal is denounced as a West
Briton, an anglicised Irishman, even, on occasions, as "not Irish at
all," although his forbears have lived in Ireland for generations.
The state of affairs in Ireland is not unlike the state of affairs in
Russia, where literary criticism, as a Russian writer has stated, has
always tended to be the handmaid of political faction. "Any writer of
sufficient talent" says a reviewer in the _Times Literary Supplement_,
"who adopted a liberal attitude was certain of the appreciation of the
_intelligentsia's_ acknowledged critical leaders, and hence of a wide
and enthusiastic audience. But writers whose instinct for the truth
led them to doubt the sufficiency of doctrinaire discontent with the
established order were debarred from the aids to literary advancement,
and had to struggle against the grain of popular, and even academic,
valuation."
It is even worse than that in Ireland, for there, generally speaking,
there is hardly any criticism at all, although there is plenty of
abuse. In great measure this lack of criticism is due to the fact that
all the mind of Ireland has been obsessed by the demand for, or the
opposition to, self-government. There has not been any reality in Irish
electoral contests for a great many years. Until the growth of Sinn
Fein, there seldom were any contests at all. Candidates for parliament
were nearly always returned unopposed. Contests, if there were any,
were between one Nationalist and another, concerned with matters of
detail and not with matters of principle, or, at the most, between
a Nationalist and a Unionist, concerned with the advocacy of, or
opposition to, Home Rule. Sinn Fein has, indeed, brought a contest to
every constituency, but even here the contest is concerned with the old
obsession, self-government in one form or self-government in another:
Home Rule within the British Commonwealth or a Republic outside it.
If one considers that this obsession was nearly always expressed in
bitter language, it is not difficult to understand how deplorable its
effects have been on the general life of the Irish people. It has
temporarily incapacitated them from judging any proposition in a sane
and dispassionate fashion; and so the critical faculty in Ireland has
languished until at times one fears that it has decayed.
Mr. Yeats is a great creative artist: he is also a great critic. Had he
chosen to do so, he could have had an enormous influence on the minds
of his countrymen. His pride in his craft, his desire for perfect
work, his contempt for subterfuges and makeshifts and ill-considered
schemes, his knowledge and his skill, all these would have affected the
faith and achievements of his countrymen, imperceptibly, perhaps, but
very surely. It is unfortunate that he was not appointed to the Chair
of Literature in Trinity College, Dublin. I know that he wished to
receive this appointment and was disappointed that he did not receive
it. The mind that might have disciplined and developed the imagination
of young Irishmen was rejected by Trinity College, and it has turned to
tiresome preoccupation with disembodied beings, to table-turning and
ouija-boards and the childish investigation of what is called spiritual
phenomena, but is, in fact, mere conjurer's stuff.