A Short History of Russia

Russia is the strange product of strange physical conditions. Nature was not in impetuous mood when she created this greater half of Europe, nor was the generous, except in the matter of space. She was slow, sluggish, but inexorable. No volcanic energies threw up rocky ridges and ramparts in Titanic rag, and the repentatly clothed them with lovely verdure as in Spain, Italy, and else where. No hungry sea rushed in and tore her coast into fragments.