[Mono-code-woodpusher] gh heaven know

[Steven B. <ro...@dj...>]

F churches or of children. My countrymen and I mean a certain and
intelligible thing when we call the Prussians barbarians. It is quite
different from the thing attributed to Russians; and it could not
possibly be attributed to Russians. It is very important that the
neutral world should understand what this thing is. If the German calls
the Russian barbarous he presumably means imperfectly civilised. There
is a certain path along which Western nations have proceeded in recent
times; and it is tenable that Russia has not proceeded so far as the
others: that she has less of the special modern system in science,
commerce, machinery, travel or political constitution. The Russ ploughs
with an old plough; he wears a wild beard; he adores relics; his life is
as rude and hard as that of a subject of Alfred the Great. Therefore he
is, in the German sense, a barbarian. Poor fellows like Gorky and
Dostoieffsky have to form their own reflections on the scenery, without
the assistance of large quotations from Schiller on garden seats; or
inscriptions directing them to pause and thank the All-Father for the
finest view in Hesse-Pumpernickel. The Russians, having nothing but
their faith, their fields, their great courage, and their self-governing
communes, are quite cut off from what is called (in the fashionable
street in Frankfort) The True, The Beautiful and The Good. There is a
real sense in which one can call such backwardness barbaric; by
comparison with the Kaiserstrasse; and in that sense it is true of
Russia. Now we, the French and English, do not mean this when we call
the Prussians barbarians. If their cities soared higher than their
flying ships, if their trains travelled faster than their bullets, we
should still call them barbarians. We should know exactly what we meant
by it; and we should know that it is true. F