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i9i7] ESTHONIAN ASPIRATIONS 487
When I arrived at Clive’s house at the appointed
hour I found myself in the presence of a
correctly-dressed gentleman whom the master of the house
introduced to me as M. Keskula. We began to talk at
once in German—as I had foreseen.
I asked M. Keskula about his antecedents. He replied
with perfect frankness that he had commenced his
political career as a partisan of German policy. Son of
a well-to-do farmer, he began his scholastic career at
the gymnasium of Reval, and then went to the University
of Berlin, where he remained and took up Esthonian
national politics.
" But I have always understood," I observed, " that
the national movement in Esthonia, just as amongst
the Letts, is closely bound up with an irreconcilable
antagonism towards the Baltic Germans—especially
towards the proprietors. Thus how could you seek
to link the cause of your nation to German policy?"
" In that respect there is a great difference
between Letts and Esthonians," was the reply. "
Whereas the former are above and before all vehement
nationalists with decided leanings to the most extreme
socialism, we others hold fast to Western civilisation.
The police order which reigns in the country, our
prosperous little properties, our schools, our hospitals,
our good roads—all that has become a habit with us
which we could not sacrifice; then from the national
point of view we have already acquired far more than
the Letts ; we have bought back a great deal of land
from the barons; we are listened to and sometimes
coaxed and flattered in the councils of administration,
in which formerly all power, all influence, belonged
exclusively to the Germans; our fellow-countrymen
hold most of the rural livings; we possess a
prosperous and influential national Press. For this reason
in Esthonia, far more than amongst the Letts, we have
always dreaded having much recourse to Russian
protection; we dreaded your despotic methods, which
would be the ruin of our local civilisation."
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