Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/218

Counter-Currents mystics of the modern world, because they sacrifice their welfare to a sentiment; because they believe in the miracle of the melting-pot, which, like Medea's magic cauldron, will turn the old and decrepit races of Europe into a young and vigorous people, new-born in soul and body. No other nation cherishes this illusion. An Englishman knows that a Russian Jew cannot in five years, or in twenty-five years, become English; that his standards and ideals are not convertible into English standards and ideals. A Frenchman does not see in a Bulgarian or a Czech the making of another Frenchman. Our immigrants may be as good as we are. Sometimes we are told they are better, that we might "learn a lesson" from the least promising among them. But no one can deny that they are different; in many instances, radically and permanently different. And to make a sow's ear out of a silk purse is just as difficult as the reverse operation. Mr. 202