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Imaginations and Reveries by George William Russell
page 100 of 254 (39%)
again. They consider that security for industry and freedom for
the individual can best be preserved in Ireland by the maintenance
of the Union, and that the world spirit is with the great empires.

4. The second political group may be described as the spiritual
inheritors of the more ancient race in Ireland. They regard the
preservation of their nationality as a sacred charge, themselves
as a conquered people owing no allegiance to the dominant race.
They cannot be called traitors to it because neither they nor their
predecessors have ever admitted the right of another people to
govern them against their will. They are inspired by an ancient
history, a literature stretching beyond the Christian era, a national
culture and distinct national ideals which they desire to manifest
in a civilization which shall not be an echo or imitation of any
other. While they do not depreciate the worth of English culture
or its political system they are as angry at its being imposed on
them as a young man with a passion for art would be if his guardian
insisted on his adopting another profession and denied him any
chance of manifesting his own genius. Few hatreds equal those
caused by the denial or obstruction of national aptitudes. Many
of those who fought in the last Irish insurrection were fighters
not merely for a political change but were rather desperate and
despairing champions of a culture which they held was being stifled
from infancy in Irish children in the schools of the nation. They
believe that the national genius cannot manifest itself in a
civilization and is not allowed to manifest itself while the Union
persists. They wish Ireland to be as much itself as Japan, and as
free to make its own choice of political principles, its culture
and social order, and to develop its industries unfettered by the
trade policy of their neighbors. Their mood is unconquerable, and
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