It extends also to the nations or fragments
of nations which make up the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In all the lands
held by these two powers we come across phenomena of geography, race,
and language, which stand out in marked contrast with any thing to which
we are used in Western Europe. We may perhaps better understand what
those phenomena are, if we suppose a state of things which sounds absurd
in the West, but which has its exact parallel in many parts of the East.
Let us suppose that in a journey through England we came successively to
districts, towns, or villages, where we found, one after another, first,
Britons speaking Welsh; then Romans speaking Latin; then Saxons or
Angles speaking an older form of our own tongue; then Scandinavians
speaking Danish; then Normans speaking Old-French; lastly perhaps a
settlement of Flemings, Huguenots, or Palatines, still remaining a
distinct people and speaking their own tongue. Or let us suppose a
journey through Northern France, in which we found at different stages,
the original Gaul, the Roman, the Frank, the Saxon of Bayeux, the Dane
of Coutances, each remaining a distinct people, each of them keeping the
tongue which they first brought with them into the land.
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