The spring of the Ukraine, warm and sunny, has quite [236]a different influence upon people to that of the cool, damp Russian or Polish spring. The sunny climate of the spring and the cloudlessness of the summer have produced in the Ukrainian a quiet, fundamentally cheerful temper. Yet, we find in him none of the gaiety which is characteristic of the people of the south as compared with the people of the north, but rather a quiet melancholy. It is just the Russians or the Poles that are of a much gayer sort than the Ukrainians, livelier, more easy-going in their social life, more frolicsome; not the Ukrainians, but the Russians and Poles, are the very ones that are vying with one another for the epithet of the “Frenchmen of the North” or “of the East,” respectively. (This remarkable fact is due, in the first place, to the unhappy history of the Ukraine). But, on the other hand, the melancholy of the Ukrainians is quiet, while the occasional melancholy of the Russians turns into despair and pessimism. The Ukrainian summer and fall, warm and beautiful, has made the Ukrainian, in contrast with the Russian, a farmer par excellence. The warmth of these seasons is very similar to Southern European conditions, and gives to the life of the Ukrainian people many southern characteristics. The life in open communion with Nature, the accessibility of her organic treasures, is much more pronounced in the Ukraine than in Russia, White Russia or Poland. In the warm seasons the Ukrainian lives much of the time outside his house. In the day he works continuously in the field or in the garden, and even at night he usually sleeps outdoors in the orchard or the yard. If the fields are at a distance from the village, a large part of the population of the place camp out in the open fields for several days during harvest time. These are all characteristics of the life of the south. Yet we see in our people no real characteristics of the people of the south. Despite all this, the Ukrainian is much more domestic than the [237]Russian, more frugal and more temperate; the “extravagant Russian nature” is entirely foreign to him. We have already seen that the Ukrainians do not have gay manners, and in like manner their activity of thought is less than that of the northern peoples, the Russians and the Poles. Yet the depth of thought of the Ukrainians is much greater, and their popular poetry incomparably deeper than that of the Russians or Poles. Dreaminess and reserve of character is much greater in the Ukrainians who live in the south than in the Poles and Russians who live in the north. All these are the effects of a sorrowful past. Only in one respect do the Ukrainians bear out their southern type of character; in their great abilities and their generally rich intellectual gifts. Every unprejudiced observer must admit that the Ukrainian peasant, almost the only typical representative of our nation, surpasses almost all his neighbors in his natural accomplishments.