Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/98

 under their sway: which, in the ruling classes of Britain, has helped to conquer and rule teeming millions of men, and which has centralised the government of the United Kingdom. But what student of history or of the social condition of this kingdom does not know their hardness, their insolence, their cruelty, their relentless graspingness? And then the Celts, with their Titanic struggles, their outbursts, their self-will, their many lapses in business and in government. Every literary and political whipster can wax feebly eloquent on their foibles. But shall we not acknowledge also their nobler qualities, their boundless hospitality, their instinct of brotherhood, their inextinguishable love of home and fatherland; their capacity for abounding joy and deepest sorrow, their intellectual quickness, their love of beauty in nature, in man, in song, in art, their spirituality, their turn for emotional religion, their inbred love for all that is sentimental, spiritual, poetic? Is it not this very Celticism which gives to Britain that special power and genius, that distinctive gift