This poetic character of the place-names of the island is a standing
reproach to us as a race. We have degenerated in poetic spirit since
such names were the natural expression of our feelings. I tremble to
think what our place-names would be if we had to make them now. Our few
modern Christenings set my teeth on edge. We are not a race of poets.
We are the prosiest of the prosy. I have never in my life met with any
race, except Icelanders and Norwegians, who are so completely the slave
of hard fact. It is astounding how difficult the average Manxman finds
it to put himself into the mood of the poet. That anything could come
out of nothing, that there is such a thing as imagination, that any
human brother of an honest man could say that a thing had been, which
had not been, and yet not lie--these are bewildering difficulties to
the modern Manxman. That a novel can be false and yet true--that, well
that's foolishness. I wrote a Manx romance called "The Deemster;" and I
did not expect my fellow-countrymen of the primitive kind to tolerate it
for a moment. It was merely a fiction, and the true Manxman of the old
sort only believes in what is true. He does not read very much, and when
he does read it is not novels. But he could not keep his hands off this
novel, and on the whole, and in the long run, he liked it--that is, as
he would say, "middling," you know! But there was only one condition on
which he could take it to his bosom--it must be true. There was the rub,
for clearly it transgressed certain poor little facts that were patent
to everybody.
Never mind, Hall Caine did not know poor Man, or somebody had told
him wrong. But the story itself! The Bishop, Dan, Ewan, Mona, the body
coming ashore at the Mooragh, the poor boy under the curse by the Calf,
lord-a-massy, that was thrue as gospel! What do you think happened? I
have got the letters by me, and can show them to anybody. A good Manxman
wrote to remonstrate with me for calling the book a "romance." How dare
I do so? It was all true. Another wrote saying that maybe I would like
to know that in his youth he knew my poor hero, Dan Mylrea, well. They
often drank together. In fact, they were the same as brothers. For
his part he had often warned poor Dan the way he was going. After the
murder, Dan came to him and gave him the knife with which he had killed
Ewan. He had got it still!
Later than the "Deemster," I published another Manx romance, "The
Bondman." In that book I mentioned, without thought of mischief, certain
names that must have been lying at the back of my head since my boyhood.
One of them becomes in the book the name of an old hypocrite who in the
end cheats everybody and yet prays loudly in public. Now it seems that
there is a man up in the mountains who owns that name. When he first
encountered it in the newspapers, where the story was being published as
a serial, he went about saying he was in the "Bondman," that it was
all thrue as gospel, so it was, that he knew me when I was a boy, over
Ramsey way, and used to give me rides on his donkey, so he did. This was
before the hypocrite was unmasked; and when that catastrophe occurred,
and his villany stood naked before all the island, his anger knew
no limits. I am told that he goes about the mountains now like a
thunder-cloud, and that he wants to meet me. I had never heard of the
man before in all my life.
What I say is true only of the typical Manxman, the natural-man among
Manxmen, not of the Manxman who is Manxman plus man of the world, the
educated Manxman, who finds it as easy as anybody else to put himself
into a position of sympathy with works of pure imagination. But you must
go down to the turf if you want the true smell of the earth. Education
levels all human types, as love is said to level all ranks; and to
preserve your individuality and yet be educated seems to want a strain
of genius, or else a touch of madness.
The Manx must have been the language of a people with few thoughts
to express, but such thoughts as they had were beautiful in their
simplicity and charm, sometimes wise and shrewd, and not rarely full of
feeling. Thus _laa-noo_ is old Manx for child, and it means literally
half saint--a sweet conception, which says the best of all that
is contained in Wordsworth's wondrous "Ode on the Intimations of
Immortality." _Laa-bee_ is old Manx for bed, literally half-meat, a
profound commentary on the value of rest. The old salutation at the door
of a Manx cottage before the visitor entered was this word spoken
from the porch: _Vel peccaghs thie?_ Literally: Any sinner within? All
humanity being sinners in the common speech of the Manx people.