Wellington

Philip Guedalla

Synopsis

Castes mark their children deeply; and as a caste, the English gentry resident in Ireland were pronounced. Every conquest leaves a caste behind it, since conquerors are always apt to perpetuate their victory in superior social pretensions. Had not the Romans been the noblemen of Europe? Even a Norman raid became an aristocracy in England; and in Ireland the Anglo-Norman conquest left a similar deposit. Such castes are frequently absorbed, assimilated by their subject populations. But where race combines with religious differences and recurrent insurrection to keep the two apart, the schism is absolute and the conquerors remain an alien caste. Such castes, where they survive, are aristocratic by necessity, since their hauteur is less a mannerism than the sole condition of their survival. For without a sinful pride the conqueror will vanish, merged in his subject population—the Norman turned Englishman, the Anglo-Irish a mere Irishman, and the Anglo-Indian “gone native.” But while their pride remains, the little garrisons live on.

Disponible depuis: 10/10/2022.

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