Only at present they have not succeeded in producing a great man. They arrogate to themselves the position of sole spokesmen and representatives of the Russian people, and at this also common sense revolts. For apart from the fact of the peasants distrusting them, and the Army hating them, what have they done for Russia? Possibly it was not they who brought about the Constitution. They class the whole gentry and aristocracy with the Bureaucrats under one sweeping ban of blame and abuse; but the gentry laid the foundations of reform and revolution long before they existed as a class at all (_vide_ the Decembrists, 1825). Moreover, the gentry gave to Russia Poushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Tolstoi, Turgeniev, Tchaikovski, and Dostoievski; in fact, her literature, her art, her music, her poetry; all her great men and men of genius. In the sphere of the arts they have made Russia hideous by importing a debased _art nouveau_ from Munich; and in the sphere of literature they have produced some excellent writers of short stories. In verse (the verse of such writers as “Skitaletzt” is weaker than the prose of Andreev and Co.) the English equivalent would be the political poetry of Mr. Alfred Austin; the political tendencies of the Russian writers, of course, differ widely from that of the English Laureate, whose work, although it has met with public recognition, would, perhaps, have made England less famous as a literary nation were it the sole representative of our poetical literature. Now that I have disburdened myself on the subject of the unfairness of the “Intelligenzia,” I feel better. According to the oriental fashion I should at once add counter-arguments giving all that there is to be said in their favour. This I will do another day. MOSCOW, _January 13th_. I came back to Moscow on the 10th. I saw the old year out (it is the Russian New Year’s Eve) with the kind family who live on the floor above mine, and with whom I always have my meals. They played Vindt all night. When the New Year came “A happy New Year” was drunk in champagne. CHAPTER IX THE BEGINNING OF THE REACTION MOSCOW, _January 14th_. To-day is the Russian New Year’s Day. To-day is also Sunday, so it would seem a fitting occasion to preach a long sermon on Russia. I have been amusing myself by finding suitable texts for such a sermon. They are all from the works of Renan, a man who gave a good deal of thought to the various political movements and phases of the world’s history, and expressed himself with that nice lucidity and divine ease which we call a perfect style. The first is this: “La Révolution française fut la gageure d’un petit nombre d’énergumènes qui réussirent à faire croire qu’ils avaient entraîné la nation.” No. 2: “Éternelle puérilité des répressions pénales, appliquées aux choses de l’âme.”