Couldst thou not wait?—what hast thou done? Another’s rights are sharply set ’Twixt thee and me. I come—mine own Receives me not. In vain we met. VI. Farewell! be happy. I forgive. Yet what remains for both? Forget That we did ever meet; and live As tho’ our meeting were not yet, VII. But later. We shall meet once more, When eyes grown dim with care and fret No longer weep; when life is o’er, And earth and heaven in God are met. TREVOR. THE PROGRESS AND POLICY OF RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA.[36] It is one of the happiest peculiarities in the construction of the human mind, that it acquires knowledge so gradually, that it cannot realise the extent of that ignorance by which it was once clouded; and forms its opinions so imperceptibly, that no precise period can be attached to their origin. It is just a year since Prince Menschikoff visited Constantinople upon a mission which subsequent events have proved to have been fraught with the most portentous consequences to Europe. If it were possible now to convey to the public any adequate notion of the lamentable want of information which then prevailed upon all matters connected with the Eastern Question, people would be inclined indignantly to deny its accuracy, if they did not go so far as to maintain stoutly that they had always penetrated into the true character of the policy of Russia, and anticipated her schemes of aggression; and, certainly, considering the prominence which this topic has acquired, it is not to be wondered at if familiarity with it should lead us into so natural an error. Nobody now doubts that the occupation of the Principalities formed part of that system of territorial aggrandisement which is the very essence of Russian policy, and which has not the less been successfully at work, because its operations have hitherto been so silently conducted as not to excite the alarm of the great powers of Europe.