h the survivors
of Suetonius' massacre in Mona might have taken refuge. I take
it that in Ireland it suffered through lack of opposition; in
Gaul, it died of too effective opposition; but in Britain there
were midway conditions that may well have allowed it to live on.

Beyond Christianizing the country, it does not appear that
Patrick did much for it. It is not clear that Ireland made any
progress in material civilization then,--or for that matter, at
any time since. We should know by this time that these things
are a matter of law. Patrick found her essentially in pralaya,
essentially under the influence of centrifugalism; and you
cannot turn the ebbing tide, and make it flow before its time.
There was a queer mixture of intensive culture and ruthless
barbarism: an extreme passion on the one hand for poetry and the
things of the spirit,--and on the other, such savagery as
continual warfare always brings in its train. The literary class
was so strong that in the little kingdom of Tir Conall in Donegal
alone the value of ten thousand dollars of the revenue was set
aside yearly for its support and purposes;--whereby one would
imagine that for all things else they could but have had a nickel
or so left. This is culture with a vengeance. There was,
besides, wonderful skill in arts and crafts, intricate designing
in jewelry-work;--and all this is not to be called by another
name than the relics of a high civilization. But there was no
political unity; or only a loose bond under the high kings at
Tara, who had forever to be fighting to maintain their authority.
There was racial, but not national consciousness.

But where in Europe was there national consciousness? We should
remember that it only began to exist, or to reincarnate from
times beyond the horizon of history, in the thirteenth century
A.D. There would be a deal less sneering at Ireland were only
these facts known. England was perhaps the first country in
which it became effective: the wars of the first and third
Edwards called it into being there. Joan lit the fires of it in
France; she mainly;--in the fourteen-twenties and thirties.
Spain had to wait for Ferdinand and Isabel; Sweden for Gustavus
Vasa; Holland for William the Silent; Italy for Victor
Emmanuel; Germany for Bismarck. Wales was advancing towards it,
in an imperfect sort of way, rather earlier than England; but
the Edwardian conquest put the whole idea into abeyance for
centuries.