There is a greater clarity in that ancient air; and fewer clouds of real
revolution and novelty have come between them and their ancient sun.
This may seem an enigma and a paradox; seeing that here a foreign
religion has successfully fought and ruled. But indeed the enigma
is also the explanation. In the East the continuity of culture
has only been interrupted by negative things that Islam has done.
In the West it has been interrupted by positive things that
Christendom itself has done. In the West the past of Christendom
has its perspective blocked up by its own creations; in the East
it is a true perspective of interminable corridors, with round
Byzantine arches and proud Byzantine pillars. That, I incline
to fancy, is the real difference that a man come from the west
of Europe feels in the east of Europe, it is a gap or a void.
It is the absence of the grotesque energy of Gothic, the absence
of the experiments of parliament and popular representation,
the absence of medieval chivalry, the absence of modern nationality.
In the East the civilisation lived on, or if you will, lingered on;
in the West it died and was reborn. But for a long time, it should
be remembered, it must have seemed to the East merely that it died.
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