“Do you mix much with the Russians?” we asked one of our new friends.
“Hardly at all; they have conquered us, they rule us, they plant whole regiments among us, and they don't even take the trouble to understand us, or to learn our language. No, we keep to ourselves, and they keep to themselves; our temperaments are so different we could never mix.”
And this is true. The position of Alsace-Lorraine towards Germany is much the same as that of Finland towards Russia. Both have been conquered by a country speaking another language to their own, and of totally foreign temperament to themselves. After forty years the people of Alsace-Lorraine are as staunchly French as before, and the same applies to the position of the Finlanders.
Helsinki, Finland, 1897
Source: Ethel B. Harley (Mrs. Alec Tweedie), Through Finland in Carts, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1913
Further links:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27743
http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2016/10/13/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner-ethel-tweedies-celebrity-table-cloths/
https://archive.org/details/cu31924027893100
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08038740903152718