And they call you "barbarians"! The fact should make us ask again what we mean by the words "culture" and "civilization." Critics used once to call our Shakespeare a barbarian, and might equally well give the same name to Aeschylus or Isaiah. All poets and prophets are in this sense barbarians, that they will not measure life by the standards of external "culture." And it is at a time like this, when the material civilization of Europe seems to have betrayed us and shown the lie at its heart, that we realize that the poets and prophets are right, and that we must, like them and like your great writers, once more see life with the simplicity of the barbarian or the child, if we are to regain our peace and freedom and build up a better civilization on the ruins of this that is crumbling. That task, we trust, will some day lie before us. When at last our victorious fleets and armies meet together, and the allied nations of East and West set themselves to restore the well-being of many millions of ruined homes, France and Great Britain will assuredly bring their large contributions of good-will and wisdom, but your country will have something to contribute which is all its own. It is not only because of your valor in war and your achievements in art, science, and letters that we rejoice to have you for allies and friends; it is for some quality in Russia herself, something both profound and humane, of which these achievements are the outcome and the expression. You, like us, entered upon this war to defend a weak and threatened nation, which trusted you, against the lawless aggression of a strong military power; you, like us, have continued it as a war of self-defense and self-emancipation. When the end comes and we can breathe again, we will help one another to remember the spirit in which our allied nations took up arms, and thus work together in a changed Europe to protect the weak, to liberate the oppressed, and to bring eventual healing to the wounds inflicted on suffering mankind both by ourselves and our enemies. With assurances of our friendship and gratitude, we sign ourselves, WILLIAM ARCHER, J.W. MACKAIL, MAURICE BARING, JOHN MASEFIELD, J.M. BARRIE, A.E.W. MASON, ARNOLD BENNETT, AYLMER MAUDE, A.C. BRADLEY, ALICE MEYNELL, ROBERT BRIDGES, GILBERT MURRAY, HALL CAINE, HENRY NEWBOLT, G.K. CHESTERTON, GILBERT PARKER, ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, ERNEST DE SELINCOURT, NEVILL FORBES, MAY SINCLAIR, JOHN GALSWORTHY, D. MACKENZIE WALLACE, CONSTANCE GARNETT, MARY A. WARD, EDWARD GARNETT, WILLIAM WATSON, A.P. GOUDY, H.G. WELLS, THOMAS HARDY, MARGARET L. WOODS, JANE HARRISON, C. HAGBERG WRIGHT. ANTHONY HOPE, HENRY JAMES, Russia and Europe's War By Paul Vinogradoff.