Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/61



I must ask your pardon for my bad English, but in deciding to accept the very kind invitation of Cambridge University to speak before you I was only impelled by the conviction that at a time like this, so fateful to the allied countries, there lies upon each one of us the obligation to promote, to the measure of our feeble powers, spiritual intercourse and friendship between our peoples. For, as was said by one of the most powerful English thinkers, "the distances of nations are measured not by seas, but by ignorances; and their divisions determined not by dialects but by enmities." Looking back on the intellectual history of the University of Cambridge and of its members, we