In what other respects the natural environment of the people moulded the common life, one can only conjecture. That the cold winters and deep river valleys have tended to the formation of isolated communities, clannishness, and provincialism, as is contended by some writers, has not generally been true. Tidal waves of conquering civilizations have passed over the country too frequently to make such an influence possible. [5] Furthermore the people are bound together by a national religion, whose chief officials are chosen by the lay members and priesthood of the many communities. [6] These representatives to the national religious assemblies return to their own people brimming with news and reports of political as well as religious and social matters. Such facts together with a common ancestry, a common tradition, and a common language have moulded a nation, and not a thousand differentiated groups among a people who were once a nation. They have tended to solidify and unify the national character, and it is just this process of solidification that gives significance to the whole fabric of beliefs, legends, and festivals of the people.
As a nation, the Armenian people are exclusive, but this is an entirely different matter. For three years I have had occasion to observe groups of students belonging to different nations, chiefly Egyptians, Syrians, Greeks, Jews, Persians, Turks, and Armenians, and the latter always showed a most persistent determination to confine their friendships and social intercourse to themselves. Perhaps this is due to the fact that nearly all of the nations above mentioned have at one time or another dominated the Armenians; perhaps it is due to the persecution they have recently suffered, which, though it has been a sufficiently important fact to result in serious social and psychological changes, has by no means been characteristic of the history of the people, as it has been, for example, of the Jews; or perhaps it is due to the solidarity and oneness of the people as a whole. I am inclined rather to the latter explanation, and may perhaps be able to prove it so.
Nevertheless, the singularity of the physical environment has placed its irremovable stamp upon the people. The words that best describe the country are not trees, hills, forests, gently flowing streams, such words as commonly express American landscape, but rather, gorges, mountain ranges, broad river valleys, treeless expanses of country. There is space to make one think of other worlds and other shores, and there are mountains suggestive of strength, that rise majestic above the plateau, to fill one with awe and wonder. Religious the people are naturally, but more than that, they are thoughtful, reflecting, considering. No writer that I have read but has spoken of the Armenian as intellectually alert and capable. That this thoughtfulness, this robust element in their idealism is in part the stamp of physical nature, there can be little doubt.