They
have this to urge, indeed, that failure to make oneself understood is
commonly regarded as a sign of the superior mind. Lord Rosebery, for
example, has told us that he himself, for all his honey-dropping tongue,
has never been properly understood. And Hegel, the great German
philosopher, who was so great a philosopher that we may without
impropriety mention his name even in the brilliant vicinage of the Earl
of Midlothian, used to sigh: "Alas! in the whole of my teaching career I
had but one student who understood my system, and he mis-understood it."
This is all very well in its way, and a climate of incomprehension may
suit orators and metaphysicians admirably; but it will not do for
politics. The party or people that fails to make its programme
understood is politically incompetent, and Ireland is assuredly safe
from any such imputation. She has her spiritual secrets, buried deep in
what we may call the subliminal consciousness of the race, and to the
disclosure of these secrets we may look with confidence for the
inspiration of a new literature.
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