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Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists by Leslie Stephen;William Ewart Gladstone;Edward A. Freeman;James Anthony Froude;John Henry Newman
page 39 of 199 (19%)
few men here and there would have understood the feelings which have led
to those two great events of our own time, the political reunion of the
German and Italian nations after their long political dissolution. Not a
soul would have understood the feelings which have allowed Panslavism to
be a great practical agent in the affairs of Europe, and which have made
talk about "the Latin race," if not practical, at least possible. Least
of all, would it have been possible to give any touch of political
importance to what would have then seemed so wild a dream as a primeval
kindred between Magyar and Ottoman.

That feelings such as these, and the practical consequences which have
flowed from them, are distinctly due to scientific and historical
teaching there can, I think, be no doubt. Religious sympathy and purely
national sympathy are both feelings of much simpler growth, which need
no deep knowledge nor any special teaching. The cry which resounded
through Christendom when the Holy City was taken by the Mussulmans, the
cry which resounded through Islam when the same city was taken by the
Christians, the spirit which armed England to support French Huguenots
and which armed Spain to support French Leaguers, all spring from
motives which lie on the surface. Nor need we seek for any explanation
but such as lies on the surface for the natural wish for closer union
which arose among Germans or Italians who found themselves parted off by
purely dynastic arrangements from men who were their countrymen in every
thing else. Such a feeling has to strive with the counter-feeling which
springs from local jealousies and local dislikes; but it is a perfectly
simple feeling, which needs no subtle research either to arouse or to
understand it. So, if we draw our illustrations from the events of our
own time, there is nothing but what is perfectly simple in the feeling
which calls Russia, as the most powerful of Orthodox states, to the help
of her Orthodox brethren everywhere, and which calls the members of the
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