Fenianism

“ The old Fenianism was politically of little account, socially of no danger, except to a few individuals who could be easily protected, and has been grossly exaggerated, either wilfully or through ignorance. ”

“ As a British officer, you're my mortal inimee in my capaceetee as a Fenian; but at this table, and in this house, we're nayther one thing nor the other. You're only Macrorie, and I'm only O'Halloran. Still I don't mind talking of the subject of Fenianism; it's an important one, and will one day take up a great speece in histhory. I don't intind to indulge in any offinsive objurgeetions ageenst the Saxon, nor will I mintion the wrongs of Oireland. I'll only enloighten you as to the purpose, the maining, and the attichood of the Fenian ordher. ”

“ Fenianism, he presumed, did not pretend to make war upon individuals, but upon a government, in any or all of its ramifications, that was alleged to be oppressive and an enemy to civil and religious freedom; and so long as any people chose to endorse the acts of such a government by defending them, and adhering to the flag under which they were said to have been committed, so long were they amenable to the party who assumed to be aggrieved in the premises, as aiders and abettors of the offence. ”

“ How futile, then, the efforts of its enemies to crush it either by ungenerous legislation, or through the propagation of falsehood. Fenianism is a power founded upon the immutable principles of truth and justice ”

“ On the subject of Fenianism I have heard many Irishmen in America speak about the large sums of American money that were spent in organizing the movement in Ireland, England and Scotland. I traveled these three countries in connection with the organization of the movement from 1858 to 1865, and I can truthfully say, that in the early years of our endeavor, “the men at home,” spent more of their own money out of their own pockets than was contributed altogether by the whole Fenian organization of America. ”

“ A prominent Massachusetts politician says that Fenianism should be crowded out of politics. Fenianism is the love of one's native land. I hope it may never be crushed out of the heart of any citizen of this country. ”

“ And then, after long lapse, came another age, and the Cycle of the Fenians. It too is full of excellent tales, but all less titanic and clearly-defined: almost, you might say, standing to the Red Branch as Wordsworth and Keats to Shakespeare and Milton. The atmosphere is on the whole dimmer, the figures are weaker; there is not the same dynamic urge of creation. You come away with an impression of the beauty of the forest through which the Fenians wandered and camped, and less with an impression of the personalities of the Fenians themselves. ”

“ The whiskey-drinking bouts that he records at the Fenian headquarters in the office of the Fenian newspaper had no existence but in his imagination, and the brutal murder of a landlord by the Fenians is an infamous creation of his too. If it is fated that the chains binding England to Ireland are to remain unbroken during this generation, and that the writer of that book lives to the end of the generation, those who live with him need not be surprised if they see him in receipt of a literary pension. He has earned it. ”

“ This change has operated to cast Telemachus into shade; and the decay of Catholicism has spread a similar cloud over Fénélon's religious works; but the spirit of the man will preserve them from perishing. His soul, tempered in every virtue, transcends the priestly form it assumed on earth; and every one who wishes to learn the lessons taught by that pure, simple, and entire disinterestedness, which is the foundation of the most enlightened wisdom and exalted virtue, must consult the pages of Fénélon. He will rise from their perusal a wiser and a better man. ”

“ Fénélon had a deep sense of his responsibility to God and man in educating the future sovereign of France. He studied his pupil's character; he adapted himself to it. Nature had clone even more in fitting him: his enthusiasm, joined to his angelic goodness, excited at once the love and reverence of the prince, at the same time that he was the friend and companion of his hours of pastime. He conquered his pride by gentleness, by raillery, or by a dignified wisdom, which convinced while it awed. When the boy insolently asserted his superiority, Fénélon was silent ”

“ If ever a man threw himself into the interests of others, or made the deep love of God, which he breathed as his native air, take loving shape in strenuous acts, it was Fénelon. He was quiet, even as was Madame Guyon, and as all other high saints have been, in so far as to rest with an absolute, unhesitating, unquestioning faith in God’s keeping, asking nothing save that His will might be perfected in him; but he was most active and energetic in body, soul, and spirit for his neighbor’s good. ”

“ The truth above all things, facts at any cost whether to ourselves or other people, is the better attitude. No 208 gain can come from falsity on the one side, any more than on the other. To delight unspeakably in the will of God, even when it involves contempt from those who misunderstand our position, is not the same as delighting in contempt itself. To insist on the lowest place when our recognized and lawful place is higher, would be neither wise nor edifying. Fénelon himself took his proper place as archbishop in the cathedral and palace and elsewhere, without diminution from his humility. ”

“ There was indeed one Frenchman who had discovered those principles which it now seems impossible to miss,—that the many are not made for the use of one,—that the truly good government is not that which concentrates magnificence in a court, but that which diffuses happiness among a people,—that a king who gains victory after victory, and adds province to province, may deserve, not the admiration, but the abhorrence and contempt of mankind. These were the doctrines which Fénelon taught. Considered as an epic poem, Telemachus can scarcely be placed above Glover’s Leonidas or Wilkie’s Epigoniad. ”

“ For example, we suppose, that the most austere critics would not accuse Fénelon of impiety and immorality on account of his Telemachus and his Dialogues of the Dead. In Telemachus and the Dialogues of the Dead we have a false religion, and consequently [Pg 55] a morality which is in some points incorrect. We have a right and a wrong differing from the right and the wrong of real life. It is represented as the first duty of men to pay honor to Jove and Minerva. ”

“ Fenelon.—Reared in the study and admiration of antiquity, and a witness of the power of Louis XIV, Fenelon naturally adopted the idea that mankind should be passive, and that its misfortunes and its prosperities, its virtues and its vices, are caused by the external influence which is exercised upon it by the law, or by the makers of the law. Thus, in his Utopia of Salentum, he brings the men, with their interests, their faculties, their desires, and their possessions, under the absolute direction of the legislator. ”

“ There is little or no mention of the war chariot which is so important a factor in the older cycle. The Fenians fought on foot or horseback, and we meet, too, frequent mention of helmets and mail-coats, which are post-Danish touches. Things are on a smaller scale. Exaggeration does not run all through the stories, but is confined to small parts of them, and it is set off by much that is trivial or humorous.
The Fenian stories became in later times the distinctly popular ones. They were far more of the people and for the [Pg 375] people than those of the Red Branch. ”

“ Hitherto the post of superior had been filled by much older men, but, though only twenty-seven, Fénelon was found to combine all those qualities which fitted him for the employment—distinguished talents, education, amiable manners, unusual prudence and discretion, much love to God, and great benevolence to man. The archbishop who selected him, M. de Harlai, was, as we have already noted, by no means of Fénelon’s stamp. He was a courtier, a man of the world, regardless of morality, and ever scheming for his own advancement. ”

“ He learnt to refer the problem of government, like the conduct of private life, to the mere standard of morals, and extended further than any one the plain but hazardous practice of deciding all things by the exclusive precepts of enlightened virtue. If he did not know all about policy and international science, he could always tell what would be expected of a hypothetically perfect man. Fénelon feels like a citizen of Christian Europe, but he pursues his thoughts apart from his country or his church, and his deepest utterances are in the mouth of pagans. ”

“ The story is not, indeed, complete; her religious life had other elements, not found, or only partially found, in Fenelon; elements centering directly in Christ and His gospel, and which had their inspiration in her Daily Food and her New Testament. What attracted her to Fenelon was not the doctrine of salvation as taught by him—she found it better taught in Bunyan and Leighton—it was his marvellous knowledge of the human heart, his keen insight into the proper workings of nature and grace, his deep spiritual wisdom, and the sweet mystic tone of his piety. ”

“ Do you hear, Leoni? That’s the idea: I’ll go in disguise.”
“Sire! It is impossible!” cried the doctor.
“Quite,” said the King, laughing; “but I like doing impossible things. Let me see, what’s the proper way to go to work? I have it! As a learned doctor like you. H’m, no. They’d want me to cure somebody, and I should be killing him perhaps. Here, Saint Simon, how should I disguise myself?”
“Well, Sire, if I were going to undertake the task I should dress myself like a—like a—like a—”
“Minstrel, Sire,” cried Denis excitedly, “like the English King Alfred.” ”

“ I should strike him down with the axe, sir.”
“But you might kill him, Swythe.”
“And if I did, sir,” said the little monk fiercely, “it would be a good thing too; for these Norsemen are wicked pagans, come to kill and slay.”
“You see, we must have fighting-men, Swythe,” said the King; and then he turned to the Queen, who was listening to what they said.
“Hah! yes, sir,” said the monk, with a sigh. “I suppose we must; and it does my heart good to see how clever the young Princes are with sword and bow; but they spend too much time learning to fight. ”

“ All the Fenians were obliged to know the rules of poetry, [10] [Pg 374] for no figure in Irish antiquity, layman or cleric, could ever arrive at the rank of a popular hero unless he could compose, or at least appreciate a poem.
The Fenian tales and poems are extraordinarily numerous, but their conception and characteristics are in general distinctly different from those relating to the Red Branch. They have not the same sweep, the same vastness and stature, the same weirdness, as the older cycle. The majority of them are more modern in conception and surroundings. ”

“ French literature, unfortunately, is on the whole such in character as to need all that it can show to be cast into the scale of moral elevation and purity. Fénelon alone—he was not alone, as the instance of Madame Guyon has just freshly been reminding us—but Fénelon alone were enough, in quality supported by quantity, not indeed to overcome, but to go far toward overcoming, the perverse inclination of the balance. ”

“ The language of love is fascinating; and Fénélon, who believed the love of God to be the beginning and end of wisdom and virtue, might well use expressions denoting the dedication of his whole being to the delightful contemplation of divine perfection; but that he should approve expressions that diverge into bombast and rhapsody, is inexplicable, except as a proof that the wisest and best are liable to error. It is true that the catholic religion is open to such sentiment and phraseology. ”

“ No, Fenimol, and you, Fenor of the Fenachrone, instant and headlong flight is our only hope of present salvation and of ultimate triumph—flight to a far distant Galaxy, since upon no point in this one shall we be safe from the infra-beams of that self-styled Overlord."
"You snivelling coward! You pusillanimous bookworm!" Fenor had regained his customary spirit as the scientist explained upon what grounds his fears were based. "Upon such a tenuous fabric of evidence would you have such a people as ours turn tail like beaten hounds? ”

“ Angus, Mider, Lêr, Manannán, and Bodb the Red, with their countless sons and daughters, loom as large in the Fenian, or so-called “Ossianic” stories as do the Fenians themselves. They fight for them, or against them; they marry them, and are given to them in marriage.
A luminous suggestion of Professor Rhys also hints that the Fenians inherited the conduct of that ancient war formerly waged between the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomors. The most common antagonists of Finn and his heroes are tribes of invaders from oversea, called in the stories the Lochlannach. ”

“ Almost everything he finds will, we believe, thus commend itself. But there will be an occasional use of language before which he will pause and make a note of question or dissent. There will be unguarded expressions which need explanation. Perhaps the chief words which he will find cause to challenge will be those of most frequent occurrence—self and self-love. Fénelon does not use these terms quite accurately, and whoever takes them literally will be led into trouble. ”

“ On the other hand, if some good fairy at your cradle gave you the gift of seeing with a vision not merely physical, why, then, the Fenland is fairyland; for though to the optic nerve there is but a level stretching to the uttermost horizon, criss-crossed with dykes and lodes and leams of a severe straightness, there is visible to the mind's eye, Horatio, an ancient order of things infinitely strange and uncanny. Antiquaries have written much of the Fens, but they do not commonly present a very convincing picture of them. ”