Note 63 — PART II. THE EASTERN QUESTION.

“Men dwelling amidst the snows of Russia are driven by very nature to grow covetous when they hear of the happier lands where all the year round there are roses and long sunny days. And since this people have a seaboard and ports on the Euxine, they are forced by an everlasting policy to desire the command of the straits which lead through the heart of an empire into the midst of that world of which men kindle thoughts when they speak of the Ægean and of Greece, and the Ionian shores, and of Palestine and Egypt, and of Italy, and of France, and of Spain, and the land of the Moors, and of the Atlantic beyond, and the path of ships on the ocean” (Kinglake’s “Invasion of the Crimea,” vol. i. p. 54).