self.  It had broken and shrunk before we get the first historical glimpses of them; before they sacked Delphi in 279 B.C.:  before their ambassadors made a treaty with Alexander; and replied to his question as to what they feared:  “Nothing except that the skies should fall.”  Before they sacked Rome in 390.  All these historic eruptions were the mere sporadic outburst of a race long past its prime and querulous with old age, I think Two thousand years of severe pralaya, almost complete extinction, utter insignificance and terrible karma awaited them; and we only see them, pardon the expression, kicking up their heels in a final plunge as a preparation for that long silence.

Some time back I discussed these historical questions, particularly the correspondence between Celtic and Chinese dates, with Dr. Siren and Professor Fernholm; and they pointed out to me a similar correspondence between the dates of Scandinavian and West Asian history.  I can remember but one example now:  Gustavus Vasa, father of modern Sweden, founder of the present monarchy, came to the throne in 1523 and died in 1560.  The last great epoch of the West Asian Cycle coincides, in the west, and reign of Suleyman the Magnificent in Turkey, from 1520 to 1566.  At its eastern extremity, Babar founded the Mogul Empire in India in 1526; he reigned until 1556.  On the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the Moguls ceased to be a great power; the Battle of Pultowa, in 1709, put an end to Sweden’s military greatness.

It is interesting to compare the earliest Celtic literature we have, with the earliest literature of the race which was to be the main instrument of Celtic bad karma in historical times—­the Teutons.  Here, as usual, common impressions are false.  It is the latter, the Teutonic, that is in the minor key, and full of wistful sadness.  There is an earnestness about it:  a recognition of, and rather mournful acquiescence in, the mightiness of Fate, which is imagined almost always adverse.  I quote these lines from William Morris, who, a Celt himself by mere blood and race, lived in and interpreted the old Teutonic spirit as no other English writer has attempted to do, mush less succeeded in doing:  he is the one Teuton of English literature.  He speaks of the “haunting melancholy” of the northern races—­the “Thought of the Otherwhere” that

     “Waileth weirdly along through all music and song
     From a Teuton’s voice or string:  ...”

Withal it was a brave melancholy that possessed them; they were equal to great deeds, and not easily to be discouraged; they could make merry, too; but in the midst of their merriment, they could not forget grim and hostile Fate:—­

     “There dwelt men merry-hearted and in hope exceeding great,
     Met the good days and the evil as they went the ways of fate.”

It is literature that reveals the heart of a people who had suffered long, and learnt from their suffering the lessons of patience, humility, continuity of effort:  those qualities which enable them, in their coming manvantaric period, to dominate large portions of the world.