but has thus far been warded
off, now by the protection of an isolating environment, now by the
diplomatic intervention of some not disinterested power. The scattered
fragments of Osman stock in European Turkey, which constitute only about
ten per cent. of the total population, and are almost lost in the
surrounding mass of Slavs and Greeks, provide a poor guarantee for the
duration of the race and their empire on European soil. On the other
hand, the Osmani who are compactly spread over the whole interior of
Asia Minor have a better prospect of national survival.

[Sidenote: Area and literature.]

An important factor in the preservation of national consciousness and
the spread of national influence is always a national language and
literature. This principle is recognized by the government of the Czar
in its Russification of Finland,[311] Poland, and the German centers in
the Baltic provinces, when it substitutes Russian for the local language
in education, law courts and all public offices, and restricts the
publication of local literature. The survival of a language and its
literature is intimately connected with area and the population which
that area can support. The extinction of small, weak peoples has its
counterpart in the gradual elimination of dialects and languages having
restricted territorial sway, whose fate is foreshadowed by the unequal
competition of their literatures with those of numerically stronger
peoples. An author writing in a language like the Danish, intelligible
to only a small public, can expect only small returns for his labor in
either influence, fame, or fortune. The return may be so small that it
is prohibitive. Hence we find the Danish Hans Christian Andersen and the
Norwegian Ibsen writing in German, as do also many Scandinavian
scientists. Georg Brandes abandons his native Danish and seeks a larger
public by making English the language of his books. The incentive to
follow a literary career, especially if it includes making a living, is
relatively weak among a people of only two or three millions, but gains
enormously among large and cultivated peoples, like the seventy million
German-speaking folk of Europe, or the one hundred and thirty millions
of English speech scattered over the world. The common literature which
represents the response to this incentive forms a bond of union among
the various branches of these peoples, and may be eventually productive
of political results.