Page:Armenian poems, rendered into English verse (IA armenianpoemsren00blaciala).pdf/19

 "If I were asked what characteristics distinguish the Armenians from other Orientals, I should be disposed to lay most stress on a quality known in popular speech as grit. It is this quality io which they owe their preservation as a people, and they are not surpassed in this respect by any European nation. Their intellectual capacities are supported by a solid foundation of character, and, unlike the Greeks, but like the Germans, their nature is averse to superficial methods; they become absorbed in their tasks and plumb them deep.... These tendencies are naturally accompanied by forethought and balance; and they have given the Armenian his pre-eminence in commercial affairs. He is not less clever than the Greek; but he sees farther."

Rev. Edwin M. Bliss says, with truth: "Those who know the race most widely and most intimately esteem it the most highly."

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, who was president of the Friends of Armenia, wrote:

"Some Americans have been prejudiced against Armenians by contact with the demoralized Armenians of Constantinople. But in Constantinople corruption extends to all nationalities. Ubicini draws a very just distinction between the Armenians of Constantinople and the Levantine ports and the Armenians of Tauris or Erzerum, the cradle of the race, where the independent and chivalrous character of the people has remained comparatively little changed by the lapse of ages. The contrast is as great as between the enervated Greeks of Phanar and the hardy Greck mountaineers of Epirus and Macedonia. The