European people

“ The fundamental and essential significance of the European events of the beginning of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the mass of the European peoples from west to east and afterwards from east to west. ”

“ And the European, proud in his might, in his strength, in his civilization and his humanity, rules arrogantly, blindly, selfishly, egoistically, amidst all the intricate cog-wheels of [151] his authority, which he slips into gear with the certainty of clockwork, controlling its every movement, till to the foreigner, the outside observer, this overlordship of tangible things, this colonizing of territory alien in race and mind, appears a masterpiece, a very world created. ”

“ But, aside from the fact that in Europe this political and social evolution had taken centuries, there was also the working of the law of the survival of the fittest. In European nations it had been the element, always composite, which deserved to live, that formed the nucleus of a nationality. ”

“ To be thus vivid and convincing about any phase of life is not easy; to make intimate to the European a life in the world’s remotest outskirts, of whose terms the European has no conception, in which he has no natural interest, whose actors are of a different race, color, and psychology from his own, is a feat bristling [94] with difficulties. ”

“ In coming to understand a mood which so fully reflects an unknown world, the European mind will discover principles which will make it rise superior to itself. May this broad comprehension of human thought lead Europe to estimate with greater justice a civilization numbering its years by thousands, and to refrain from thwarting the fulfillment of its destiny. ”

“ Wherever we have gone, we have carried Europe with us; wherever we have gone, we have never got beyond the power of the two influences which, mingling into one, have made Europe all that it has been. The whole of European history is embodied in the formula which couples together the ‘rule of Christ and Cæsar;’ and that joint rule still goes on, in the shape of moral influence, wherever the tongues and the culture of Europe win new realms for themselves in the continents of the western or in the islands of the southern Ocean. ”

“ What the Europeans shared with each other, which in their own eyes distinguished them from everyone else and made them capable of ‘discovering’ and ‘civilising’ the rest of the world, was a distinctive kind of consciousness or conscience. ”

“ No sooner does an European arrive, no matter of what condition, than his eyes are opened upon the fair prospect; he hears his language spoke, he retraces many of his own country manners, he perpetually hears the names of families and towns with which he is acquainted; he sees happiness and prosperity in all places disseminated; he meets with hospitality, kindness, and plenty everywhere; he beholds hardly any poor, he seldom hears of punishments and executions; and he wonders at the elegance of our towns, those miracles of industry and freedom. ”

“ She had resolved that he should travel through All European climes, by land or sea, To mend his former morals, and get new, Especially in France and Italy (At least this is the thing most people do) . ”

“ One of the most amazing spectacles in history is the expansion of Europe since the sixteenth century. Not resting content with discovering the rest of the world, the European nations with sublime confidence pressed on to divide the new continents among them, to conquer, Christianize, and civilize the natives, and to send out millions of new emigrants to establish beyond the seas a New England, a New France, a New Spain, and a New Netherland. ”

“ What has made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them, which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes, nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable ”

“ The next two years should be spent in the great towns of Europe, in order to remove awkwardness of manner, prejudices of race and feeling, and to get the outward forms of a European citizen. All this would sharpen his wits, give him more interest in life, more keys to knowledge. ”

“ Europe sends her millions hither, and they in turn send back by every ship to those they left behind, the wonderful record of what they see here; and these inspiring testimonies are read at the firesides of ten thousand hamlets by kindred men whose awakening intelligence and energies are stirring the foundations of European society and shaking all thrones to inevitable ruin, unless they speedily plant themselves on more solid ground than the divine right of kings. ”

“ But, in the modern, you ought to know the bounds and extent of every state in Europe, and its situation with respect to the rest. The other parts of the world will require less accurate knowledge, except with regard to the European settlements. ”

“ Distinctions of class, profession, or nationality, entering so largely into European life, separating man from man, lose their hold upon Europeans meeting in the distant East. The great [Pg 288] West, seen at that distance, becomes their common country; they are drawn together by the bond of common views, feelings and modes of thought which obliterate the artificial lines of nationality—nay, they feel for, and treat each other as only blood relations and brothers would in Europe. ”

“ The forces of regionalism, nationalism, and separatism still dominate European life. But the ideology and techniques of Europeanization are widely recognized, accepted and put into practice. The development of worldism seems to be following a parallel course. ”

“ The Europeans now imagine themselves as representing, in the main, the highest types of men on earth.
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A characteristic of Europeans: inconsistency between word and deed; the Oriental is true to himself in daily life. How the European has established colonies is explained by his nature, which resembles that of a beast of prey. ”

“ This immense continent being peopled with elements of European civilization, could not remain a mere appendix to Europe. But when it is connected with Europe by a thousand social, moral, and material ties, by blood, religion, language, science, civilization, and commerce, to believe that it can rest isolated in politics from Europe, would be just such a fault as it was that England did not believe in time the necessity of America's independence. ”

“ If we were to endeavour, by a similar test, to ascertain which European nation has contributed the most to the progress of European civilization, we should find Italy, Germany, England, and Spain, each claiming the first degree, but each also naming France as clearly next in merit. ”

“ They were to produce an intense and active civilization of their own; a civilization which was undoubtedly the highest and the best our race has known, conformable to the instincts of the European, fulfilling his nature, giving him that happiness which is the end of men.
As we also know, Europe on this great experiment of the Middle Ages, after four hundred years of high vitality, was rising to still greater heights when it suffered shipwreck. ”

“ Sundry sturdy European ideas, transplanted into this western soil, have triumphed over all competitors and thriven so mightily as to react upon all parts of the Old World, some more, some less, and thus to modify the whole course of civilization. ”

“ The European, with his larger leisure, and generations of leisure in his brain, his interest in everything, and knowledge of many things,—above all of the world,—has reduced gallantry to a fine art. He may give his fancy, his sentiment, his passion, even his leisure, to one woman at a time, but his heart—well, unless he is very young—that remains quite intact. ”

“ On the other hand, the benefits of the movement to European civilization were varied and positive. The classical revival gave to Europe, not only faultless literary models, but large stores of valuable knowledge. ”

“ By ones or twos, men and women might be accepted into the established church, marry into the dominant race, rise to the governing class; but the exceptions proved nothing. The European believed in his station in life, his civil status, the standing of his family in the financial or social world. ”

“ We see Europe's greatest sin precisely where we found Africa's and Asia's,—in human hatred, the despising of men; with this difference, however: Europe has the awful lesson of the past before her, has the splendid results of widened areas of tolerance, sympathy, and love among men, and she faces a greater, an infinitely greater, world of men than any preceding civilization ever faced. ”

“ But the chief impression was of that unity of existence, so opposite to the European, and, for a change, so pleasant, from its repose and gilded lightness. Their imperial majesties do really seem so "perfectly serene," that we fancy we might become so under their sway, if not "thoroughly virtuous," as they profess to be. ”

“ In mixing with the commercial fashionables and exclusives of the American cities, the European is at once amused and annoyed with the assumption of a social tone and spirit at variance with the whole make of the country. ”

“ European by descent and education, many of them allied to the oldest and proudest families of the Old World, every idea of culture, of art, and magnificence had come to them as part of their European inheritance, and we see its result in every thing that they did or proposed to do for the new Capital which they so zealously began to build in the woods. ”

“ In the meantime, it is necessary for them to distinguish themselves in all departments of European distinction and to stand in the front rank: until they shall have advanced so far as to determine themselves what distinction shall mean. Then they will be called the pioneers and guides of the Europeans whose modesty they will no longer offend. ”

“ But which, under the influence of European genius, have reached a degree of excellence, that has wrought an important change in the constitution of society.
Far from looking back, and forming itself slavishly on the past, it is characteristic of the European intellect to be ever on the advance. Old discoveries become the basis of new ones. ”

“ They built, planted, cultivated Europe; all the while saving the treasures of learning, knowledge, human justice, politics, and art. We shall ever recognize in Europe the places where those radiant centres once were. ”

“ At home and abroad they have exploited nature, men and other animals in their interest and for their profit. The trading cities of medieval Europe, the emerging nations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the colonizing empires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the industrial European empires of the nineteenth century devoted their energies increasingly to expanding into new territory, occupying and exploiting it, and fighting the wars which pock-marked the ceaseless struggle for pelf and power. ”

“ The environment of a modern European will add to the physical surroundings an enormously enlarged mass of social traditions and customs, an extensive literature, contact with numerous other societies in various stages of culture, and relations, more or less obscure, to a vast literary and social past. The environment thus includes not merely the living, but also the dead. Roman law, Greek philosophy, Eastern religious ideas, etc., all affect the twentieth century European. ”

“ The European centralized states had emerged and were assuming the national features which mark them today. The modern languages of Europe were highly developed in their literary treasures and in everyday speech. ”

“ THE close of the sixteenth century saw western Europe undergoing a curious and comfortable change. Civilization, with her handmaid, luxury, and her schoolmaster, the printing-press, had seduced the souls of men. ”

“ For a long time there had existed in the centre of Europe a celebrated nation, mistress of an extensive and fruitful country, brilliant with the double glory of war and arts, protecting for ages, with an unwearied arm, the barriers of Europe against the barbarians who raged around its frontiers. ”

“ Europe is too far away from the centre of civilization, i.e. the Middle Kingdom; hence Russians, Turks, English, French, Germans, and Belgians look more like birds and beasts than men, and their languages sound like the chirping of fowls. ”

“ You stretch out your gigantic hands a thousandfold every day over the waves; your relations with Europe are not only commercial as with Asia, they are also social, moral, spiritual, intellectual; you take Europe every day by the hand. How then could you believe, that if that hand of Europe, which you grasp every day, remains dirty, you can escape from soiling your own hands? ”

“ The continental nations of Europe are very differently constituted to what we are; they are generally a distinct people, but they have more or less become amalgamated years ago, and at present have assumed a degree of nationality, having their own peculiar theories, customs, and ideas of religion and politics, and their own notions and standards of a social system. ”

“ The aspect of the European of today makes me very hopeful. A daring and ruling race is here building itself up upon the foundation of an extremely intelligent, gregarious mass. It is obvious that the educational movements for the latter are not alone prominent nowadays. ”

“ This arises from our institutions, and from the character which they have imprinted upon our people. In Europe, certain classes, having by their intelligence and wealth and influence the power to attract all things to themselves, set the current from the center toward the surface. ”

“ Before European influence prevailed, they even founded states in some of the larger islands or they obtained political influence in existing native states. Under a strong European government they are among the quietest, most industrious subjects, all earning their own living and saving something for their poor relations at home. ”