d, in order to do this, we must
create a strong feeling against West-Britonism, for it--if we give it the
least chance, or show it the smallest quarter--will overwhelm us like a
flood, and we shall find ourselves toiling painfully behind the English at
each step following the same fashions, only six months behind the English
ones; reading the same books, only months behind them: taking up the same
fads, after they have become stale _there_, following _them_ in our dress,
literature, music, games, and ideas, only a long time after them and a
vast way behind. We will become, what, I fear, we are largely at present,
a nation of imitators, the Japanese of Western Europe, lost to the power
of native initiative and alive only to second-hand assimilation. I do not
think I am overrating this danger. We are probably at once the most
assimilative and the most sensitive nation in Europe. A lady in Boston
said to me that the Irish immigrants had become Americanised on the
journey out before ever they landed at Castle Gardens. And when I ventured
to regret it, she said, shrewdly, "If they did not at once become
Americanised they would not be Irish." I knew fifteen Irish workmen who
were working in a haggard in England give up talking Irish amongst
themselves because the English farmer laughed at them. And yet O'Connell
used to call us the "finest peasantry in Europe." Unfortunately, he took
little care that we should remain so. We must teach ourselves to be less
sensitive, we must teach ourselves not to be ashamed of ourselves, because
the Gaelic people can never produce its best before the world as long as
it remains tied to the apron-strings of another race and another island,
waiting for _it_ to move before it will venture to take any step itself.

In conclusion, I would earnestly appeal to every one, whether Unionist or
Nationalist, who wishes to see the Irish nation produce its best--and
surely whatever our politics are we all wish that--to set his face against
this constant running to England for our books, literature, music, games,
fashions, and ideas. I appeal to every one whatever his politics--for this
is no political matter--to do his best to help the Irish race to develop
in future upon Irish lines, even at the risk of encouraging national
aspirations, because upon Irish lines alone can the Irish race once more
become what it was of yore--one of the most original, artistic, literary,
and charming peoples of Europe.