must speak English. Dilettanteism might possibly do much harm here,
might mislead and waste and bring to nought a genuine talent. For
all modern purposes, I repeat, let us all as soon as possible be one
people; let the Welshman speak English, and, if he is an author, let
him write English.

So far, I go along with the stream of my brother Saxons; but here, I
imagine, I part company with them. They will have nothing to do with
the Welsh language and literature on any terms; they would gladly
make a clean sweep of it from the face of the earth. I, on certain
terms, wish to make a great deal more of it than is made now; and I
regard the Welsh literature,--or rather, dropping the distinction
between Welsh and Irish, Gaels and Cymris, let me say Celtic
literature,--as an object of very great interest. My brother Saxons
have, as is well known, a terrible way with them of wanting to
improve everything but themselves off the face of the earth; I have
no such passion for finding nothing but myself everywhere; I like
variety to exist and to show itself to me, and I would not for the
world have the lineaments of the Celtic genius lost. But I know my
brother Saxons, I know their strength, and I know that the Celtic
genius will make nothing of trying to set up barriers against them in
the world of fact and brute force, of trying to hold its own against
them as a political and social counter-power, as the soul of a
hostile nationality. To me there is something mournful (and at this
moment, when one sees what is going on in Ireland, how well may one
say so!) in hearing a Welshman or an Irishman make pretensions,--
natural pretensions, I admit, but how hopelessly vain!--to such a
rival self-establishment; there is something mournful in hearing an
Englishman scout them. Strength! alas, it is not strength, strength
in the material world, which is wanting to us Saxons; we have plenty