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.
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