An Interview with the Editor 427 



sympathises with everything that is human, without any distinction 

 of nationality, blood, or soil. It finds out and immediately admits to 

 be reasonable whatever may contain but a grain of all-human interest. 

 It is possessed by a sort of instinct of all-humanness. At the same 

 time you may observe in a Russian an unlimited capacity for the 

 soundest self-criticism, the soberest judgment of himself, and a com- 

 plete absence of self-assertion which is sometimes prejudicial to 

 freedom of action." 



When I read this, I said to myself, He is describing the best 

 class of Jewish characteristics rather than Russian, and you 

 may judge of the pleasure with which I followed the text — 



" Korolenko's life and work are an excellent illustration of this thesis. 

 He was born in 1853, in Jitomir, a largely Jewish town in the province 

 of Volynia." 



You think, then, that Korolenko was probably of Jewish 

 descent ? 



Yes, and Dostoyevsky also. 



But they both of them have Russian names, and the Jews 

 in Russia do not intermarry with natives. 



That is true, but this is how it comes about. Not in- 

 frequently a benevolent and enthusiastic Christian has an 

 opportunity — after a massacre, perhaps, — of getting posses- 

 sion of a beautiful Jewish child. The child is adopted, 

 christened and renamed, and in the course of a few genera- 

 tions its lineage is lost, but not its blood. I have no more 

 belief in high literary genius springing up native amongst 

 the Slavs than amongst the Teutons. It is produced only 

 when an old race is engrafted on a young one, receiving 

 from it its vigour and at the same time conferring its own 

 deeper insight. 



