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heard of them. We are perhaps in advance of the
Germans in this one thing, that we do not have great men
like them. We lack a Felix Dahn, a Gustav Freytag,
and Julius Wolff, and so on. We do not have the solid
and learned, earnest men, who on the other side of the
frontier write novels in four volumes, and historical
works in fifteen. There is an utter want of that kind
of genius among us. We have not even the Prussian
Feldwebel with clinched fists, in whom our neighbors
see the new Pericles. He is deeply indebted to us. The
stupidity of our statesmen is his genius. To that extent
you can find his genius here.”
This trait of depreciating and speaking ironically
about themselves is of very frequent occurrence among
the progressive Russians, more frequently than among
the Poles of the present time, and united with an irony
pointed at foreign self-conceit, which it is difficult to
find elsewhere.
Just as the Russians, as a rule, do not extol the
geniality or the industry of their countrymen, so also the
more refined and more sceptical among them glorify just
as little their intellectual powers or their trustworthiness.
“Look out for a Russian,” you will hear in St.
Petersburg: “he has more imagination than intellect, and more
intellect than moral sense.” This is hardly true about
the common people of Great Russia, whose quick
apprehension, constancy in work, and perseverance in adversity,
are crowned by the most meritorious virtue, — a great
gentleness, — and who, however credulous they may
be, and however easily on that account they may be
frightened for the moment, still have an equipoise in
their nature, a consistency in their method of thought,
and a quiet courage, which makes them composed and
steady in times of danger.
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