The living currents at the top have never reached the mass at the bottom--that despised but necessary soil in which the prosperity of the Empire is rooted.

There has been no vital interchange between the separated elements, which have been in contact, but not in union.

And Russia is as heterogeneous in condition as it is in elements.

It has accepted ready-made the methods of Greek, of Tatar, and of European; but has assimilated none of them; and Russian civilization, with its amazing quality, its bewildering variety of achievement in art, literature, diplomacy, and in every field, is not a natural development, but a monstrosity.

The genius intended for a whole people seems to have been crowded into a few narrow channels.