Page 485 - the-idiot

more candid and are ashamed of the expression ‘love of
country,’ and have annihilated the very spirit of the words
as something injurious and petty and undignified. This is
the truth, and I hold by it; but at the same time it is a phe-
nomenon which has not been repeated at any other time or
place; and therefore, though I hold to it as a fact, yet I rec-
ognize that it is an accidental phenomenon, and may likely
enough pass away. There can be no such thing anywhere
else as a liberal who really hates his country; and how is this
fact to be explained among US? By my original statement
that a Russian liberal is NOT a RUSSIAN liberal—that’s the
only explanation that I can see.’
‘I take all that you have said as a joke,’ said Prince S. se-
riously.
‘I have not seen all kinds of liberals, and cannot, there-
fore, set myself up as a judge,’ said Alexandra, ‘but I have
heard all you have said with indignation. You have taken
some accidental case and twisted it into a universal law,
which is unjust.’
‘Accidental case!’ said Evgenie Pavlovitch. ‘Do you con-
sider it an accidental case, prince?’
‘I must also admit,’ said the prince, ‘that I have not seen
much, or been very far into the question; but I cannot help
thinking that you are more or less right, and that Russian
liberalism— that phase of it which you are considering, at
least—really is sometimes inclined to hate Russia itself, and
not only its existing order of things in general. Of course
this is only PARTIALLY the truth; you cannot lay down the
law for all...’

The Idiot