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Unless a man writes in the exotic style of Brahms, Wagner, Dvorak and I know not what other Slav, Czech, Teuton or Hebrew, the critics are sure to accuse him of being an anachronism. The only man in England who is permitted to write in a style which is in the main of home growth is the Irish Jew, Sir Arthur Sullivan. If we may go to a foreign style why may we not go to one of an earlier period?
The rabid opposition offered to Hebrew literature by the Hasidim suffices to confirm this prognostication of a dreaded result. Also beyond the boundaries of the Slav countries, in the distant Orient, the Hebrew lion is gaining territory, from Palestine to Morocco, and wherever his foot treads, culture springs up and national regeneration.
With us Latin, Slav, Celt, and Saxon have blended the strain that proved its mettle as "Americans All" under the Stars and Stripes in France. We have given succor and sanctuary to the oppressed of many lands and these foreign elements, in the main, have not only been grateful but have proved to be distinct assets in our national expansion. We are a merged people.
The Archduke Heir Apparent was the victim of Greater Serbia's aspirations; but these aspirations, which led to the breaking away of our Southern Slav provinces, would not have been suppressed, but, on the contrary, would have largely increased and asserted themselves, and would have strengthened the centrifugal tendencies of other peoples within the Monarchy.
It inhabits deserts whose extent is so vast that it expands at its ease; there is no jostling there, as there is in Europe, and civilization is impossible without the constant friction of minds and interests. The Ukraine, Russia, the plains by the Danube, in short, the Slav nations, are a connecting link between Europe and Asia, between civilization and barbarism.
The Slav is just girding himself up to begin. Why may not the yellow and the brown start out on an adventure as tremendous as our own and more strikingly unique? The ultimate success of such an adventure the Western mind refuses to consider. It is not the nature of life to believe itself weak. There is such a thing as race egotism as well as creature egotism, and a very good thing it is.
But the fact remains that the Southern Slavs, or the Slavs generally, do not like the Latin language in the divine service. For the Slav conscience it is something incongruous: the Latin language of Nero and the spirit of Christ. Every language is the bearer of a certain spirit. Latin is the bearer of a juristic and despotic spirit. Ranke said: "The Papal Church is a legacy of ancient Rome."
Such settlers make good on soil, whatever ill they work in a polling booth. Except for his religious vagaries, the Doukhobor Russian is law abiding. The same can not be said of the other Slav immigrants. Crime in the Northwest, according to the report of the Mounted Police, has increased appallingly.
"The Cabinet opinion in Berlin has been swayed by the two factors which we have discussed. It is the wish of Germany, and her policy, to end once and for all the eastern disquiet, to weaken Russia so that she can no longer call herself the champion of the Slav races and uphold their barbarism against our culture. France is to be dealt with only as the ally of Russia.
The Southern Slav question, as has already been argued in an earlier chapter, can only be treated satisfactorily as an organic whole; and it may be taken for granted that Austria-Hungary, in the event of victory, will annex the two independent Serb kingdoms, and unite the whole Serbo-Croat race under Habsburg rule.
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