Welsh Newspapers

Search 15 million Welsh newspaper articles

Hide Articles List

12 articles on this Page

1-—■ THE LIGHTING OF BANGOR.

BANGOR BANKRUPTCY COURT.

A TIMELY WARNING.

I"UN ROMANCIER TAILLEUR."

News
Cite
Share

I "UN ROMANCIER TAILLEUR." In a recent issue of the Journal des Debats," a leading Parisian journal devoted to literature and politics, an article appeared from the pen of Mons. Le Braz on the writings of the late Daniel Owen, the Welsh novelist. The writer is one of the little coterie of French litterateurs who have made them selves acquainted with Wales and its literature, and some time 'ago visited Daniel Owen, the tailor romancist," as he affectionately calls him. The writer says :— The English papers announce in moving and sympathetic terms the premature death of Daniel Owen. I do not fancy that this name arouses many memories on this side of the Channel. The French contemporary mind prides itself-with reason-on no longer living shut up within itself, but on opening out everywhere its frontiers to the intellectual manifestations of other countries. But our knowledge of foreigu literature does not pre- vent us still from being precariously, and, as it is said, insufficiently informed. Here is, in fact, a writer in whom his countrymen recognise one of the highest, one of the purest incarnations of their race, and of whom it is scarcely necessary to say that the work, the genius, the name even, are to us totally unknown. One knows merely that there exists a Welsh literature of a singularly original and profound character, more preoccupied, perhaps, than any other in fixing in its notations of an almost religious sincerity the most changing aspects of the modern mind. It is a small country, this lai-d of Wales, at first sight wild and rough- Wild Wales," as the English call it. But how hospitable when one penetrates it! Above all, how much vitality What admiration of all the noble forms of life one finds there In no part of the world will one find a culture at once stronger and freer, or amongst the masses an originality more daring. Not a Liberal reform has been accomplished in England in the course of this cen- tury of which the Welsh have not at the com- mencement set the example by realising it at home by their personal resources and their own activity. A democratic sentiment, powerful and wise on the whole, animates the conscience of this robust little nation. And it is also this spirit :which impregnates the hole of their literature and which has found in Daniel Owen, according to the opinion of compe- tent judges, its most faithful, perspicacious, and eloquent interpreter. It is not that the quantity of works of this Welsh novelist was large; he would make but a poor figure by the side of the enormous pile of the Rougon-Macquart," al- though, be it said in passing, the woiks wÀich he composed have been propagated, as have those of M. Zola, to some thousands and thousands of copies. Three or four volumes of novels, amongst which the most noted are "The Village" and The Adventures of Enoch Huws," a long study of ecclesiastical manners, which has for its title Rhys Lewis, pastor of Bethel," I believe, are all that Daniel.Owen bequeathed to posterity. Bear in mind that his literary career extended over more than twenty years. Where is there amongst us the literary tyro who has not as many, if not more, to his name ? Even the most shallow seam- ingly of these narratives is full of substance, ob- servation, and; reality; nothing artificial or mediocre, only conscientiousness and absolute in- tegrity.^ The spirit of the whole nation is em- bodied m the work of Daniel Owen in one power- ful abridgement; it has only to be seen to be recognised. The Welsh, at least, affirm it. What higher praise of any writer do you know of ? No one more than Daniel Owen has been a prophet in his own country. A universal esteem and venera- tion surrounded hina. All classes discussed with emulation his works immediately they appeared. Their publication, whether in book form or in periodicals of the Principality, assumed'the pro- portions of a national event. Few contemporary authors have been more read and re-read. As soon as you put your foot in Wales, in every house the same recommendation was. expressed: "Be sure not to leave without having visited Daniel Owen, our great novelist." All those who have accomplished this visit have surely preserved al very original impression. You landed one beautifu day at Wyddgrug (in English, Mold), a neat, pretty town in the county of Flint, where Daniel Owen has lived all his life, except the years of study passed at Bala, the great intellectual centre of Wales. The first comer of whom you inquired for the residence of the celebrated writer was eager to conduct you there, and you stopped, not with- out astonishment, before the modest shop of a "tailor and draper." There it was! "Daniel Owen received you himself on the threshold of his door, waited politely while you explained to him the motive which brought you there, then showed you into a room at the back, which was half parlour and half workroom. Long before Tolstoi had preached the regenera- tion of mankind by maneal labour, Daniel Owen had applied the method on his own account, without doing s), it is true, in theory, and simply because it assured the dignity of his life, the pen having always seemed to him an instrument of beauty and not of lucre. Not one of the least sin- gularities of this remarkable man was the absence of aH literary pose. It had not occurred to him to open to his reputation a field more vast; if he had written in English his books and his fame would have gained by the universality of that language. He preferred to remain faithful to the nationai idiom. It was sufficient for him that he had raised to the literature of his country an imperish- able monument. His ambition never went farther. At his obsequies, which took place last week, the whole of Wales was represented. The prin- cipal towns of England even, in a spirit of una- nimity, sent delegates to the ceremony The tailor novelist of Mold had, it appears, the most imposing of funerals. He sleeps now in the ceme- tery of his native town, in the midst of the fami- liar surroundings. Of all the speeches which have been pronounced, of all the epitaphs which have been read over his, tomb, I will only cite that phrase wherein is said so much What Walter Scott was for Scotland, Daniel Owen was for Wales."

Advertising

Advertising

Advertising

HOW TO DEFEAT OUR ENEMIES.

CARNARVONSHIRE AND ANGLESEY…

l CARNARVON SHIRE CON GREG…

AGAIN AT WORK AT HIS BENCH.

Festiniog.