There is nothing particularly Tartar in Russian affairs,
except the fact that Russia expelled the Tartars. The eastern invader
occupied and crushed the country for many years; but that is equally true
of Greece, of Spain, and even of Austria. If Russia has suffered from the
East she has suffered in order to resist it: and it is rather hard that
the very miracle of her escape should make a mystery about her origin.
Jonah may or may not have been three days inside a fish, but that does
not make him a merman. And in all the other cases of European nations who
escaped the monstrous captivity, we do admit the purity and continuity
of the European type. We consider the old Eastern rule as a wound, but
not as a stain. Copper-coloured men out of Africa overruled for centuries
the religion and patriotism of Spaniards. Yet I have never heard that
Don Quixote was an African fable on the lines of Uncle Remus. I have
never heard that the heavy black in the pictures of Velasquez was due
to a negro ancestry. In the case of Spain, which is close to us, we can
recognise the resurrection of a Christian and cultured nation after its
age of bondage.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48