THE RUSSIANS AND THEIR LANGUAGE 205

humour. It would be a quaint revelation to him
if he reahzed some day that the Eussians ... do
not seem to appreciate his love for them. Even
his call ' Love Russia !' makes them smile. Both
in private correspondence and in the best Uberal
Press coming from Russia I can see this ungrate-
fulness leaking out.^ The overwhelming majority
of Russians are unable to appreciate Mr. Graham's
somewhat strange though sincere manner of
burning incense to their goodness. After all we
are but ordinary mortals ! However different
national characters may be, we have not grown
more than other nationahties out of the natural
human habit of being human — just human; and
being ' sentimentahzed out of all hfe-hkeness '
calls forth our sense of humour. If we are per-
mitted to know ourselves a little better than the
most ardent foreign admirer of Russia does, I
would hke to point out that the ' warmth ' taking
such a large part in Russian life and speech does
not kill the sense of humour at all ! I would like
to speak up just for that sense of humour rather
innate in the Russians, in the place of senti-
mentahty with which Mr. Graham — perhaps un-
consciously—endows us.
However much warmth there is in a Russian and
in his speech, this warmth is ever so far from the
superficial, shallow nature of sentimentality. The

^ See The Times Literary Supplement, March 16, 1916.
