“智者與圣人的寶島”-資料下載頁

　　

【正文】 orshelter, the queen, who held on tightly to her millions, sent therelief mittee, which had already collected thousands of poundsfrom benefactors of all social classes, a royal grant in thetotal amount of ten pounds. As soon as the mittee noticed thearrival of such a gift, they put it in an envelope and sent itback to the donor by return mail, together with their card ofthanks. From these little incidents, it would appear that therewas little love lost between Victoria and her Irish subjects, andif she decided to visit them in the twilight of her years, such avisit was most certainly motivated by politics. The truth is that she did not e。 she was sent by heradvisers. At that time, the English debacle in South Africa inthe war against the Boers had made the English army an object ofscorn in the European press, and if it took the genius of the twomandersinchief, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener (both ofthem Irishmen, born in Ireland) to redeem its threatened prestige(just as in 1815 it took the genius of another Irish soldier toovere the renewed might of Napoleon at Waterloo), it also tookIrish recruits and volunteers to demonstrate their renownedvalour on the field of battle. In recognition of this fact, whenthe war was over, the English government allowed the Irishregiments to wear the shamrock, the patriotic emblem, on St.Patrick39。s Day. In fact, the Queen came over for the purpose ofcapturing the easygoing sympathies of the country, and adding tothe lists of the recruiting sergeants. I have said that to understand the gulf that still separatesthe two nations, one should have been present at her entry intoDublin. Along the way were arrayed the little English soldiers(because, since the time of James Stephens39。 Fenian revolt, thegovernment had never sent Irish regiments to Ireland), and behindthis barrier stood the crowd of citizens. In the decoratedbalconies were the officials and their wives, the unionistemployees and their wives, the tourists and their wives. When theprocession appeared, the people in the balconies began to shoutgreetings and wave their handkerchiefs. The Queen39。s carriagepassed, carefully protected on all sides by an impressive body ofguards with bared sabres, and within was seen a tiny lady, almosta dwarf, tossed and jolted by the movements of the carriage,dressed in mourning, and wearing hornrimmed glasses on a lividand empty face. Now and then she bowed fitfully, in reply to someisolated shout of greeting, like one who has learned her lessonbadly. She bowed to left and right, with a vague and mechanicalmovement. The English soldiers stood respectfully at attentionwhile their patroness passed, and behind them, the crowd ofcitizens looked at the ostentatious procession and the patheticcentral figure with curious eyes and almost with pity。 and whenthe carriage passed, they followed it with ambiguous glances.This time there were no bombs or cabbage stalks, but the oldQueen of England entered the Irish capital in the midst of asilent people. The reasons for this difference in temperament, which has nowbee a monplace of the phrasemakers of Fleet Street, are inpart racial and in part historical. Our civilization is a vastfabric, in which the most diverse elements are mingled, in whichnordic aggressiveness and Roman law, the new bourgeoisconventions and the remnant of a Syriac religion are reconciled.In such a fabric, it is useless to look for a thread that mayhave remained pure and virgin without having undergone theinfluence of a neighbouring thread. What race, or what language(if we except the few whom a playful will seems to have preservedin ice, like the people of Iceland) can boast of being puretoday? And no race has less right to utter such a boast than therace now living in Ireland. Nationality (if it really is not aconvenient fiction like so many others to which the scalpels ofpresentday scientists have given the coup de grace) must findits reason for being rooted in something that surpasses andtranscends and informs changing things like blood and the humanword. The mystic theologian who assumed the pseudonym ofDionysius, the pseudoAreopagite, says somewhere, 39。God hasdisposed the limits of nations according to his angels39。, and thisprobably is not a purely mystical concept. Do we not see that inIreland the Danes, the Firbolgs, the Milesians from Spain, theNorman invaders, and the AngloSaxon settlers have united to forma new entity, one might say under the influence of a local deity?And, although the present race in Ireland is backward andinferior, it is worth taking into account the fact that it is theonly race of the entire Celtic family that has not been willingto sell its birthright for a mess of pottage. I find it rather naive to heap insults on England for hermisdeeds in Ireland. A conqueror cannot be casual, and for somany centuries the Englishman has done in Ireland only what theBelgian is doing today in the Congo Free State, and what theNipponese dwarf will do tomorrow in other lands. She enkindledits factions and took over its treasury. By the introduction of anew system of agriculture, she reduced the power of the nativeleaders and gave great estates to her soldiers. She persecutedthe Roman church when it was rebellious and stopped when itbecame an effective instrument of subjugation. Her principalpreoccupation was to keep the country divided, and if a LiberalEnglish government that enjoyed the full confidence of theEnglish voters were to grant a measure of autonomy to Irelandtomorrow, the conservative press of England would immediatelybegin to incite the province of Ulster against the authority inDublin. She was as cruel as she was cunning. Her weapons were, andstill are, the batteringram, the club, and the rope。 and ifParnell was a thorn in the Eng