Welsh Journals

historical vicissitudes and especially our religious revolutions have been entirely without their repercussions on our poetry. To people of this school of thought my remark "that there were plenty of plays in Wales about which there was nothing Welsh except the language" must have been meaningless. At the same time I am look- ing forward to meeting the man who would say that those recent innumerable Victorian melo- dramas hastily and unnaturally re-clothed in Welsh garments are native art, while plays like "The Poacher" and "Change," which have sprung spontaneously and therefore unerringly from Welsh soil-so characteristic that they can- not be appreciated to their felicitous fullness outside Wales,-are foreign products. Mr Ernest Rhys speaking so freshly and so urbanely on "The Celt in Modern times" antici- pated a hope that Dr Mary Williams in her racy paper on "The Celt and Internationalism" developed-that the mission of the Celt to-day should be pacific and constructive. The Celts, though scattered, were a deciding influence in many countries; let them revive their ancient glory and bring healing to a war-ridden world. On Thursday morning by a happy innovation, language discussions were held, each nation in a different room these decisions were reported in a joint meeting in the afternoon. The develop- ment of a definite and distinct literature was stressed as the only effective means of preserving a language; this according to Professor Gruffydd implied "the public recognition of the language not as a mere patriotic curiosity," but as the natural expression of the thought of the people in religion, in politics, and indeed in all their daily interests. On Tuesday evening Miss Jennie Williams, in a paper on "Welsh music," rode gallantly to battle with the Red Dragon flying from her lance. The foe was English interference with native Welsh music; not content with unhorsing her enemy this exhilarating speaker, in an excess of high spirits, gaily rolls him in the dust. The position of Welsh music, owing to the league of servile Welshmen and stupid Englishmen, was desparate. Englishmen instead of encouraging Welsh music to flow in its natural and native course, insisted on diverting it into Teutonic channels the result was another addition to the great mass of mediocrities. She attributed the poverty of Welsh musical output to the fact of an unassimilable English education. Having totally demolished the enemy, Miss Williams- in this manner anticipating Dr Vaughan Thomas' lecture-urged that the only salvation of Welsh music lay in returning to the folk-songs and building a national music upon them. This would be to follow the methods and rival the success of modern Russian music. On Tuesday Dr Vaughan Thomas in an argument charmingly illustrated and refreshed by songs of his own singing and sometimes of his own composition, exposed the fallacy that "music is an universal language." Notes were like vowels and conson- ants, which were common to most languages, but the combination of these vowels and conson- ants in words, and words in sentences with their peculiar syntax, was a matter of association, of experience and habits of thought." In fact evi- dences pointed to the speaking of a more or less defined musical language by different peoples. For example, the pentatonic scale, found in Welsh and Hebridean songs was a musical language, and differed in idiom and in spirit from what one generally associated with German or English music. A musician should use his native idiom-he would be of more interest to the world at large as a master of a traditional craft than he would be as an insincere imitator. Wales should go back to its ancient sources of music-the traditional folk-song, the ballads and the carols, the pennillion singing and the harp melodies as a foundation of a Welsh school of music. That this can and has been done Dr Vaughan Thomas proved in a striking and de- lightful manner by some of his own renderings of the poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Dr J. E. Lloyd of Bangor has in the manner of experts, destroyed yet another flattering illusion. In the Middle Ages the Welshman (and is he now? consience darkly asks) was not a shy and diffident creature. Nor was he reticent and modest. Indeed Geraldus Cambrensis tells us that he completely overbore the Englishman, who became "bashful and cast down in the presence of the tall Welsh." Space only allows bare mention of some of the other items on the programme of speeches-Mr O'Toole's interesting paper on "The Poetry of Glas Droman," Miss Margaret Dobbs' erudite account of "The Northern Chieftains' relations to Ireland and Wales," Dr MacLean Matt on "The Highlands and Islands of Scotland," Pro- fessor F. W. O'Connell on "The Irish Language," M. Jaffrenon on "The movement in Brittany," Mr Robin Flower on "The Future of Irish Studies," and Mr Edward Gwynn's dis- covery of the first Pan-Celt-a Welshman "Edward Lloyd." Two concerts of Celtic music were held, at the second of which Wales was proud to be represented by Madame Leila Megane; there were two excursions to places of interest and beauty, and we had the unforgettable privilege of being conducted over Tara Hill and to Greenore by Dr MacAlister, most human, humorous, and vivid of archaeologists. Perfor- mances of plays in Irish were given at the Abbey Theatre with a simple art that concealed art, while players from North and South Wales pre- sented samples of the Welsh drama movement. Irish hospitality ceaseless and overflowing dur- ing our whole visit, and here once more gratefully acknowledged, formalised iteslf in a banquet, where we were entertained by the Government, and in two garden-parties given respectively by the Chief Justice and Mrs Kennedy, and by the President and Mrs Cosgrave.