416 Mr. Stephen Graham [April 16, 



Solovyof ; in history — Kluchevsky, Karamsiin ; in contemporary 

 journalism— Rozanof, Menshikof, Doroshevitch, Merezhkovsky ; even 

 in Russian science, which is something apart from European science, 

 Mendeleef, Metchnikof, all without exception are Russian names, the 

 names of Russian people at once Christian and Slavonic. Xothing- 

 is contributed by Jews ; nothing is contributed by Poles ; nothing 

 by Finns. These people each have their own characteristic separate 

 literature and religion and art. They think in their own tongues, 

 pray in their own churches, have their own characteristic ideas. 

 There is not the blending we have in England, where we include in 

 our national literature the works of Jews, Poles, Hindoos, of people 

 proud of French origin, proud of German origin, and so on. The 

 Russian idea is something purely Russian. 



This is important not merely as a curious circumstance. It indi- 

 cates the fact that the fundamental Russian idea should be something 

 more easy to unravel, more evident, more mighty than other con- 

 temporary ideas. How much more easy, for instance, to determine 

 just what is the national Russian conception of life than to deter- 

 mine ours, obscured and complicated by so many foreign elements. 



There is a spirit abroad to-day which calls for the thing called 

 cosmopolitanization, in other words, for that process of the mon- 

 grelizing of nations and ideas which is manifest to-day in America. It 

 wishes the breaking down of national barriers — intermarriage. The 

 doctrine seems to be promulgated chiefly by those Jews who have 

 sold their 'priceless birthright, who have given up the Zionist ideal, 

 and settled down to think they are no longer Jews but Englishmen, 

 Americans, Germans, what not. They talk of the United States of 

 Europe, as if the United States of America were not sufficient of a 

 problem and a muddle. 



Russia is the strongest bond of nationality, being the purest and 

 clearest of the nations. Germany, France and England also tend to 

 shake themselves free, and seek to find and to be themselves. 



My quest at present is to unravel the Russian idea, and present 

 Russia as she is in her spirit and her passion. By seeing Russia in 

 this way we have a revelation of the majesty of a national idea. "We 

 obtain a notion how we should look if we could see ourselves as we 

 really are. 



Russia and England are akin, if it were only in the l)ond of 

 Christianity. We have certain spiritual affinities. We could know 

 ourselves much nearer to one another, though that depends on us 

 rather than on Russia. She has much more to teach us than we liave 

 to teach her. It is only kindness to our politicians and progressive 

 Avorkers that could over suggest that they had anything to teach 

 Russia — except the object lesson of the vanity of their tasks. Russia, 

 alas ! may learn wrong things of us and go wrong — Dostoieffsky's 

 nightmare. The noisy middle-class Russia of to-day does indeed 

 tend to follow after other gods. But for the moment I cannot pause 



