Only one of its races even now comprises so much as
one-fourth of the whole, and not another so much as one-sixth; and
each has remained for ages as unchanged in isolation, however
mingled together in locality, as globules of oil in water. There
is nothing else in the modern world that is nearly like it, though
there have been plenty in past ages; it seems unreal and impossible
even though we know it is true; it violates all our feeling as to
what a country should be in order to have a right to exist; and it
seems as though it was too ramshackle to go on holding together any
length of time. Yet it has survived, much in its present shape, two
centuries of storms that have swept perfectly unified countries
from existence and others that have brought it to the verge of
ruin, has survived formidable European coalitions to dismember it,
and has steadily gained force after each; forever changing in its
exact make-up, losing in the West but gaining in the East, the
changes leave the structure as firm as ever, like the dropping off
and adding on of logs in a raft, its mechanical union of pieces
showing all the vitality of genuine national life.
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