he movements of a community whose ideals are the same, but whose
situation is unique. This situation was brought vividly home to me in
the course of an argument more than eighteen months ago. "Don't forget,"
I was told, "that Poland has got to live in contact with Germany and
Russia to the end of time. Do you understand the force of that
expression: 'To the end of time'? Facts must be taken into account, and
especially appalling facts, such as this, to which there is no possible
remedy on earth. For reasons which are, properly speaking,
physiological, a prospect of friendship with Germans or Russians even in
the most distant future is unthinkable. Any alliance of heart and mind
would be a monstrous thing, and monsters, as we all know, cannot live.
You can't base your conduct on a monstrous conception. We are either
worth or not worth preserving, but the horrible psychology of the
situation is enough to drive the national mind to distraction. Yet under
a destructive pressure, of which Western Europe can have no notion,
applied by forces that were not only crushing but corrupting, we have
preserved our sanity. Therefore there can be no fear of our losing our
minds simply because the pressure is removed. We have neither lost our
heads nor yet our moral sense. Oppression, not merely political, but
affecting social relations, family life, the deepest affections of human
nature, and the very fount of natural emotions, has never made us
vengeful. It is worthy of notice that with every incentive present in
our emotional reactions we had no recourse to political assassination.
Arms in hand, hopeless or hopefully, and always against immeasurable
odds, we did affirm ourselves and the justice of our cause; but wild
justice has never been a part of our conception of national manliness. In
all the history of Polish oppression there was only one shot fired which
was not in battle. Only one! And the man who fired it in Paris at the
Emperor Alexander II. was but an individual connected with no
organisation, representing no shade of Polish opinion. The only effect
in Poland was that of profound regret, not at the failure, but at the
mere fact of the attempt. The history of our captivity is free from that
stain; and whatever follies in the eyes of the world we may have
perpetrated, we have neither murdered our enemies nor acted treacherously
against them, nor yet have been reduced to the point of cursing each
other."

I c