The influential political leader with whom I dined last night, and who is one of the leading members of the party of October 17th, said that there was not a man in Russia who believed in Witte, that Witte was a man who had no convictions. I asked why he himself and other Zemstvo leaders had refused to take part in the administration directly after the Manifesto had been issued, when posts in the Cabinet were offered to them. He said their terms had been that the Cabinet should be exclusively formed of Liberal leaders; but they did not choose to serve in company with a man like Durnovo, with whom he would refuse to shake hands. He added that it would not have bettered their position in the country with regard to the coming Duma, which he was convinced would be Liberal. Talking of the Constitutional Democrats he said they were really republicans but did not dare own it. CHAPTER XIII IN THE COUNTRY SOSNOFKA, GOVERNMENT OF TAMBOV, _March 25th_. When one has seen a thing which had hitherto been vaguely familiar suddenly illuminated by a flood of light, making it real, living, and vivid, it is difficult to recall one’s old state of mind before the inrush of the illuminating flood; and still more difficult to discuss that thing with people who have not had the opportunity of illumination. The experience is similar to that which a child feels when, after having worshipped a certain writer of novels or tales, and wondered why he was not acknowledged by the whole world to be the greatest author that has ever been, he grows up, and by reading other books, sees the old favourite in a new light, the light of fresh horizons opened by great masterpieces; in this new light the old favourite seems to be a sorry enough impostor, his golden glamour has faded to tinsel. The grown-up child will now with difficulty try to discover what was the cause and secret of his old infatuation, and every now and then he will receive a shock on hearing some fellow grown-up person talk of the former idol in the same terms as he would have talked of him when a child, the reason being that this second person has never got farther; has never reached the illuminating light of new horizons. So it is with many things; and so it is in my case with Russia. I find it extremely difficult to recall exactly what I thought Russia was before I had been there; and I find Russia difficult to describe to those who have never been there. There is so much when one has been there that becomes so soon a matter of course that it no longer strikes one, but which to the newcomer is probably striking.