Preface                       vii
will find them sprung from the same stem as
many different-seeming characteristics of his
own people. A period of confusion must fol-
low, in which he will waver between contra-
dictions, and his sharp outlines will become
blurred with what the painters call "repen-
tances."
From this twilight it is hardly possible for
any foreigner's judgment to emerge again into
full illumination. Race-differences strike so
deep that when one has triumphantly pulled
up a specimen for examination one finds only
the crown in one's hand, and the tough root
still clenched in some crevice of prehistory.
And as to race-resemblances, they are so often
most misleading when they seem most instruc-
tive that any attempt to catch the likeness of
another people by painting ourselves is never
quite successful. Indeed, once the observer
has gone beyond the happy stage when sur-
face-differences have all their edge, his only
chance of getting anywhere near the truth is