I do not understand Welshmen. When we say we do not understand such-and-such a person, we usually mean that he has been making himself a nuisance. He has been bothering us in some way; and the puzzle of his motives and further intentions has become a practical one. I do not mean anything of the kind here: I mean barely what I say. The distant Trojans never injured me. Taffy never came to my house or stole any part of the provisions. On the contrary, historically speaking, I went to Taffy’s house and took away a good deal of what belonged to him. I do not think that Taffy is a thief; I do not even know enough about him to be sure of the preliminary statement that he is a Welshman. I mean, quite simply and ingenuously, that I know nothing about Wales—not even (for certain) that there is such a place. I went, indeed, a few weeks ago to a curious place full of rocks; and the people there said it was Wales. But, then, other people said that these people were very sly, and that you could not believe anything they said. But, then, as I did not believe the second people who did not believe the first people, it all came back to the same comfortable condition as before, which is one of blank and disinterested nescience. It is a condition I am in with regard to a large number of things in this world. I keep my faith for the things of another world. About this world I am a complete agnostic. But in this particular case of ignorance I rather fancy that I am not alone. I think that the great majority of Englishmen have no real notion of the Welsh type or spirit, whatever it is. They have conceptions of the Scot and the Irishman, false conceptions, but always containing some lines of a true tradition. The Englishman does, so to speak, understand the Scotchman even when he misunderstands him. The Englishman does know what the Irish are, even while he demands indignantly of heaven why they are. The stingy Puritan in plaid trousers is a very crude and unjust version of that queer blend that makes the Scot—the combination of a certain coarseness of fibre with great intellectual keenness for abstract and even mystical things. Still, it is a version; the prose and poetry of the Scot remain in the caricature. The picture of Paddy at Donnybrook leaves out all the subtlety and self-tormenting irony that are mixed up with the pugnacity of the Irish. Still, the Irish are pugnacious; the Englishman has got the leading feature right. He knows that, for all his economics, the Scotchman often has a bee in his bonnet, and he knows that the Irishman generally has a wasp in his—a thing that will sting itself or anyone else merely for fun or glory.
In these cases, the caricature, though stiff, highly coloured, antiquated, and largely false, tells the remains of several truths. But who on earth has ever seen a caricature of a Welshman? In Punch and such papers we never see anything but pictures of a Welshwoman—as if there were no males in that peculiar country with the rocks. Even the woman is only marked as Welsh by wearing an extraordinary costume, rather like that of Cinderella’s supernatural godmother. Without the artist suggesting any costume at all, one would recognize the very silly portraits of Irishmen with long upper lips, in the style of apes. Without any plaid trousers to assist the mind, one could spot the stiff beards and rocky cheek-bones of the Scotchmen of Charles Keene. But if you took away the Welshwoman’s extraordinary hat, there would be nothing whatever to show that she was a Welshwoman. We have not in our minds a Welsh type to make fun of. It is interesting to remember that apparently Shakespeare had.
This state of entire non-understanding (as distinct from misunderstanding) of the Welsh seems to me just now to be not only unique, but important and rather serious. For, unless I am very much mistaken, Wales is going to play ............