Algernon Blackwood

“ And he has done this well because he felt it deeply, and gives his feelings with an honest modesty that is both engaging and illuminating. “I love Russia. She is something more to me than my native land. I have lived among beautiful people leading serene and tranquil lives far from the Western hurly-burly. These have been so mystically pure that I could never be quite sure that they had not foreseen my coming in a dream. England knows not such. To me they are a revelation of love.” Here speaks the poet who feels the thing from within himself, not merely observes it from outside. ”

“ Books of travel one reads more and more with a sense of weariness, for the art of making one see and feel the countries described is surely an exceedingly rare one. There are often pages of fine description, there are adventures, there is the interest of obstacles and difficulties overcome, and there are⁠—maps. ”

“ There are many things in Undiscovered Russia we should like to dwell upon, or at least to mention, but the wonderful adventures this “vagabond” encountered would lose their charm and interest in the process of condensation. It would be to spoil the flavour of a remarkably interesting book of travel. ”

“ It leads him, firstly, to battle with the hostile forces of nature in order to live, and consequently develops in him qualities of tenacity, energy and strength; and secondly, it leads him to bow down and submit to the overwhelming and insuperable forces of nature, against which all struggle is hopeless. ”

“ And both writers agree that the Russian peasant is essentially humane and gentle, and more humane than Europeans of the same class. He will calmly beat a man to death for stealing a horse, yet will also show a compassionate and generous hospitality that is tender in the last degree. ”