SPREAD OF BALTIC IDEALS 273 



fruits : the current of industry is frequently 

 disturbed by strikes of workmen. But the 

 increasing similarity of interests and pursuits 

 tends to draw rich and poor together : kindliness 

 on the part of the well-to-do is the more appre- 

 ciated as it becomes more sympathetic and less 

 patronizing. Moreover, the activity which is 

 exercised upon material objects appears inciden- 

 tally to react upon the mind, weakening the 

 instinct of cruelty and strengthening that of 

 kindness. It certainly does not arouse such 

 jealousy that cruellest of emotions as is pro- 

 voked by struggles for social or political prece- 

 dence. So the Baltic races, in wrestling with 

 substance, have found more abiding visions of 

 the spirit than have been vouchsafed to peoples 

 of less practical instinct. They have led the 

 world in philanthropy as well as in industry, 

 illustrating the fable in which a man's heirs, by 

 digging for treasure in his orchard, find in the im- 

 provement of its produce the gold which his will 

 had promised them. Their wealth and prosperity 

 have drawn upon them the eyes of all other 

 peoples, and, by imitation, their cult of the 

 material and even their attitude towards women 

 have spread, and are spreading far and wide 

 amongst nations that fall within the pale of 

 Christendom. Outside this circle of religious kin- 

 ship the ideas of Northern Europe are adopted 

 much less eagerly : they can hardly be accepted 

 without some suspicion of disloyalty to creed, 

 some sacrifice of natural pride. So Turkey hesi- 

 tates to follow her Christian neighbours ; and India 

 lags, in her standard of comfort, behind the 

 humbler families of the British Isles. 



