File:Honeymooning in Russia (1911) (14742694566).jpg

Identifier: honeymooninginru00wood (find matches)
Title: Honeymooning in Russia
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Wood, Ruth Kedzie
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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in before we left.That evening we sent a bouquet to Madame, his wife, whoreturned a gracious note of acknowledgment. With few exceptions, the veneer of Russian courtesyglosses a primal cruelty and insensibility to others suffer-ings, actually as savage as that which inspired the bar-barisms of the ancestral Scythian and Sarmatian. Thistruism has often been uttered, but it is none the less ap-palling. As recipients of the kindly hospitality of well-mannered Russians, it had been almost impossible for usto reconcile their whole-hearted generosity with this pes-simistic assertion as to the real core of their natures.Given the power to assert authority, the Slav is possessedwith an inborn mania to swing the lash. If the bloodstarts on the back of the victim — it is God who has willedit. With them, the names God and Fate are interchange-able. Unto each man happens what was decided at hisbirth. The wolf seizes the destined sheep. What isto be cannot be avoided. Upon the convenient head of
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Moscow and a Letter of Introduction 201 Fate are heaped the results of sin. Personal, moral obli-gation is foreign to the Russian character. Pagans atheart, they are fatalists in every circumstance of life. Ifa Russian steals — Fate directed him to steal; if he lies,the words were put into his mouth — he is but the instru-ment of Fate; if he is oppressed — why resist? — Fateguides the hand of the oppressor. If he is in want, whystruggle to better himself? It is Gods will. If a fellow-man is tortured, if he gasps and sickens in a cell under theground — why attempt his release ? He is in the resistlesstoils of an irrevocable Power. If he is exiled to life-agony— he was foreordained to suffer, and who can gainsay Godand Fate? If there are those who are compassionate andresentful at the thought of unspeakable wrongs, it is be-cause the poison of Fatalism has begun to work out oftheir blood. When Russias veins flow free of the curseof her pagan ancestry, she may be counted a ci

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