be more right than wrong. It may be, though, that we have here a case of the weakness-the tendency to morbid introspection and delight in hallucination-to which Celtic nature is said to be so susceptible. This may be the case, but when one considers how materialism masquerading as mysticism dominates the speculation of the English speaking world, and how even men of scientific reputation are putting forth theories about reincarnation and life after death that are more naïvely materialistic than the superstitions of the Stone Age, there is strong reason for asking whether or not such psychological intemperance as that indulged in by Mr. Sharp may not be an evidence of modern decadence rather than a Celtic heritage.

In Wales the Celtic movement has run a different course than in either Scotland or Ireland, for the Welsh language has been a literary medium to a much greater extent. Ever since the English conquered their country, the Welsh have maintained a considerable literature in their own language, and even today there are a number of authors with a rather wide public who write in Welsh. During the past several centuries, however, the matter dealt with by Welsh writers has become more and more a reflection of certain aspects of English literature, so that only its language is Celtic. Of the ancient Celtic material that has been put into English, the most important for the general reader is the translation by Lady Charlotte Guest of the "Mabinogion." This is a collection of stories in which many of the characters and incidents of the Arthurian Legend appear, and it is intensely interesting for itself alone, and also for the fruit for speculation it offers as to the probable origin of these enormously significant tales.

Turning now to French Brittany, the last region of important Celtic remains, for the Isle of Man and Cornwall have little, we shall find most of the rather incomplete literature in French. However, the writer who is perhaps the chief interpreter of Breton civilization, Anatole Le Braz, has been translated, and the entire Celtic movement has given birth to no books more worthy of note than his "Land of Pardons" and his still more impressive "Night of Fires." His method is not unlike that of the primitive songs of his race. He presents the facts without elaborate artistic modification, and while the

events he describes are picturesque, it is their significance rather than their picturesqueness that he brings out. Although a scholar, he is not devoid of imagination, and the simple faith of the superlatively credulous and surpassingly imaginative Breton peasant is to him but transformed sympathy and aspiration. He does not hold it up to contempt and ridicule, as another Breton, the great sceptic Renan does. On the other hand he does not minimize its sinister characteristics. The sentimental attachment of the peasant to familiar or flattering notions, the defiance of fact and persistence in fancy, the adherence to beliefs and practices that are perverse and almost insensate, he depicts without reprehension, but without concealment. He shows us better than anybody else the Breton race still pagan at heart, still, behind the cloak of formal Christianity, animated by age-old convictions based on primitive existence in contact with nature. Celtic nature worship, Celtic fire worship, the cult of the dead, he shows us still persisting in modern France, in all essentials, as they existed when our Aryan ancestors in the infancy of civilization wandered like babes in the wood through this great wild world which was so full of real and imaginary terrors for them. In this union of knowledge with imagination Anatole Le Braz seems quite remarkable, and it even appears at times as if his work presages the literature of the future, in which scientific knowledge and poetic insight should combine. Certainly no better field for the fusion of these two things could be found than in celebration of the achievements of an almost vanished race whose contribution to the civilization we enjoy and prize has been as great as it is unappreciated.

The Albanian Question and Epirus

N. J. CASSAVETY

Khiassim Bey, the young Turk representative at Scutary, replied to Miss M. E. Durham, who insisted that Turkey should consider the question of Albania, "Mademoiselle, there is no Albanian question. All are Ottomans." (Spectator, July 22, 1911.)

Of course Mademoiselle Durham was stupefied at this As a Westerner, she could not grasp the meaning. Nevertheless, Khiassim Bey was right. For, Mohammedanism knows not nationality and allows no racial distinctions. All Mohammedans, whether they are of Armenian or Greek, or Arab, or Albanian, or Turk races, are Ottomans. Mr. Brailsford in an able study on Turkey, in the Contemporary Review of April, 1918, writes:

"The Arabs may have been bad subjects of the Turks, in the sense that they disliked taxation, conscription, and any rule whatever other than that of their tribal chiefs; but they resisted our occupation and have no aspiration for a more elaborate civilization. The Arabs of the Hedjaz and the Yemen undoubtedly wish to be left alone, as nomads always do. It would be a grave mistake, however, to suppose that these primitive Arabs are nationalists as the Greeks and the Armenians are. We shall go astray if we talk of liberating non-Turkish Moslems from Turkish rule."

Such a thesis, we repeat, is incomprehensible to the Western European and to the American who differentiate between religion and nationality.

An American is American no matter to what church he goes. He may be Protestant, or Roman Catholic, or Hindu, he is always American in nationality. It is not so with the Mohammedans. And Mr. Brailsford, who is a veteran writer on the Near East question, is, we think, the first Englishman who has discovered the whole truth about Mohammedanism and its relation to nationalism. He writes:

"There has grown in my mind, in watching the disappointing course of the reforms, the conviction that all of them

have fallen short of success because they failed to take account of the traditional structure of society in the East. The living thing, which has existed from immemorial times, and survives, in spite of the neglect of modern reformers, is the voluntary community united by religion around a church or a mosque. The natural social unit in Turkey is not the province, the city or the village. It is a group of families which worship together. The religious sentiment gathers to itself the instincts which we in the West distinguish as national, or local patriotism."

What he says about the Arabs is equally true of the Albanians.

History supports this theory of Mr. Brailsford. The Greeks in the Island of Crete, who were forced to accept Mohammedanism, have become the most violent enemies of the Greeks. The Pomacs in Macedonia, who were Bulgar Christians, and were converted to Mohammedanism, are the most incurable enemies of the Bulgar race in Macedonia.

In Epirus, under Ali Pasha, hundreds of families have turned Moslem. These Moslems are the bitterest enemies of the Greek element.

There is an error committed by the people of Western Europe and of America, as regards the various Moslem races. It is believed, for instance, that the Mohammedan Albanians, are not in sympathy with Turkey.

The Westerners point out a number of revolutions of the Albanians against the Turks. But, how superficially do they judge the causes of these revolutions if they are led to believe that the Albanians ever were against Turkey because they yearned for their independence!

Dr. E. J. Dillon wrote in the Contemporary Review in 1903:

"A war-like nation like the Albanians would long since have won absolute independence and founded a powerful Balkan State, had it not been for the utter absence of any national striving or ideals. During all the centuries of their chequered existence, they have never advanced beyond the tribal stage, not even when the Albanian League was founded at Turkey's instigation (1878) in order to work in the restitution of the Goonye and Plava to Albania."

Mr. Reginald Wyon wrote in the same spirit in the Blackwoods Magazine of April, 1903:

"As to the people themselves, spoken of collectively as Albanians, or sometimes as Arnauts, the idea gained thereby of a united nation is quite erroneous. They must first be divided into three, according to the three religions-namely, Mohammedans, Greek Orthodox, and Roman Catholic Chris

tians.

"These three religious factions constitute three entirely different peoples, each animated by fanatical hatred of the other; and they can be sub-divided into clans and factions ad lib. As each clan can be reckoned as a miniature autocratic kingdom ready at any moment to go to war with its next door neighbor, the anarchy existing all over Albania can be faintly imagined."

Such is the political status of Albania. Out of 1,500,000 population 90,000 are Roman Catholics to the North, and 300,000 Greek Orthodox to the South. The remainder 1,100,000 are Moslems, hating the Christians and despising them as rayas, or slaves.

Dr. Dillon wrote in the Contemporary in 1903 :

"Islam, in the opinion of the Mohammedans, is the faith of the conquerors; Christianity the creed of slaves."

"Islam has not modified its character any more than the leopard has changed his spots."

"Between Moslem and Christian there can be no equality. How can there be justice and equity?"

And Miss M. E. Durham wrote in the Spectator in 1911: "Europe has a strange idea that the nature of the Mohammedans has undergone a complete and magical transformation."

In 1912 and 1913, during the advance of the Greek army in Epirus, the Mohammedan Albanians sacked almost every Christian village they found undefended, and committed atrocities upon those whom two Great Powers in 1913 decided to unite into one nation.

The experiment was tried, and the comic-opera was played, which resulted in a climax that had been long fore

seen.