Thursday, June 01, 2006

Kipling on Russia

Alexander at Registan posted this quote from Rudyard Kipling:
Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks his shirt in. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only when he insists upon being treated as the most easterly of Western peoples, instead of the most westerly of Easterns, that he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The host never knows which side of his nature is going to turn up next.
I wondered where it came from. Thanks to Google, I found out the quotation comes from his short story titled The Man Who Was.