Finally, if it be asked from what point of view I approach my study of Russia, I would answer that I have no political views whatever in the matter; I have tried to make it my business to discover, understand, and explain the points of view of the people with whom I have met; with some of these views I sympathise, with others I do not. I have already said that I have not disguised my sympathies, but I have attempted to understand even what repelled me; my attitude is that of a sympathetic friend, for whether the Frenchman who said “L’intelligence est presque toujours la sympathie” was right or wrong, I am convinced that the converse is true, and that the spirit of carping is nearly related to stupidity. A YEAR IN RUSSIA CHAPTER I ST. PETERSBURG TO GODZIADAN _August 8, 1905._ I left St. Petersburg this evening for Manchuria. The one absorbing discussion in St. Petersburg is the question of the peace negotiations. Will there be peace or not? IN THE TRAIN ON THE WAY TO IRKUTSK, _August 11th_. I started for Irkutsk on the 9th from Moscow. The train is crowded with people—officers going to the war, men of business going to Siberia, women and children. It is exceedingly hot. The last time I travelled in this Trans-Siberian express the winter had just given way to the leafless and bare aspect of early spring. Now we travel through great stretches of green plains, past huge fir-woods which are burnt and browned by the heat. The topic of the peace negotiations continues to prevail above all other topics. I am constantly asked my opinion. We have just received the latest telegrams from Portsmouth. A man of business asked me if I thought there would be peace. I said “Yes.” “There won’t be,” he replied. The railway line is fringed all the way with pink flowers, which, not being a botanist, I take to be ragged robin. At night the full moon shines spectral and large over the dark trees and marshes, and every now and then over stretches of shining water. The officers discuss the war from morning till night. They abuse their generals mercilessly. They say that it is impossible for Russians to look foreigners in the face. In my compartment there is an army doctor. He assisted at the battle of Mukden and is now returning for the second time to the war. He tells me that he wrote a diary of his experiences during the battle and that he is unable to re-read it now, so poignantly painful is the record. He trusts there will not be peace. He is sanguine as to the future. He loathes the liberal tendencies in Russia and detests Maxim Gorki. Yet he is no Jingo.