File:Ridpath's Universal history - an account of the origin, primitive condition and ethnic development of the great races of mankind, and of the principal events in the evolution and progress of the (14781857404).jpg

Identifier: ridpathsuniversa05ridp (find matches)
Title: Ridpath's Universal history : an account of the origin, primitive condition and ethnic development of the great races of mankind, and of the principal events in the evolution and progress of the civilized life among men and nations, from recent and authentic sources with a preliminary inquiry on the time, place and manner of the beginning
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history
Publisher: Cincinnati : Jones
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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e original stock by which it waspeopled. It is doubtful whether any othercountry in the world, unless we exceptsome of the Oriental empires, has for solong a time supported a Early deveiop-sino-le race of men Der- ^i^ent of the m- singie xaLC ui incii, pei tellectual life in mitting their development Iceland.by natural laws and the ethnic forcespeculiar to themselves. The land andthe people are alike full of interest.Iceland was far ahead of every othercountry in Europe in intellectual de-velopment and the production of aliterature in the ages subsequent to thedestruction of the Roman empire in theWest. Before the Anglo-Saxons in theage of Alfred began to cultivate litera-ture as an art; before the Normans firstraised the notes of song on the banks ofthe Lower Seine; before the Visigoths,or the Islamites who succeeded them, hadbegun the formation of literary models inthe southwestern peninsula of Europe, theIcelanders, under the thick fogs of theirinhospitable island, had evolved from
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36 GREAT RACES OE MANKIND. their consciousness, on the vehicle of theNorse tongue, the elements of a litera-ture which, as compared Avith the area andsituation of the land and the number ofpeople inhabiting it, was altogether inexcess as to quantity and quality of anyother production west of the Hellespontand the Nile. This is particularly true of the histori- people, a living example of a languagewhich has suffered less mutation, lesscorruption of grammar and vocabulary,than anv (_)ther Teutonic speech Avhat-ever. Only the translation of the Bibleinto )\Ioeso-Gothic, by the AisigothicUltilas, may be fairly compared with thework done in Iceland in the earlier cen-turies of our era.

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