The effect that should be produced by the lavish expenditure of money and the splendour of much of the material are somewhat neutralised, however, by the fact that the great palaces and churches (with the exception of St. Isaac's) profess to be what they are not, and expose to the air no other material than stucco. The very elements rebel against so much imposture and bring down great patches of plaster, while western rulers have been utterly powerless to prevent the appearance of extremely eastern features in every corner of the town. But in spite of all defects of detail these uniform Classic buildings, well grouped and set off by wide spaces and trees, produce a really magnificent effect, and as often as the black peaty earth is exposed by taking up the streets for drains one realises more fully the miracle of all these sumptuous structures founded in security upon a quaking bog.[150] Here is a city, one feels, that was raised by a people of iron will, a nation that was only invigorated by the centuries of Mongol domination; a people who seek to be western Europeans, but as a nation are not, though many individuals among them are leaders in European thought and science too. In some respects St. Petersburg gives one the impression of being the capital of a vast dominion more than any other city on the globe. Even in the British Empire there is nothing that appeals to the imagination quite in the same way as the fact that from the Russian capital one may travel entirely on Russian territory to the frontier of Austria, to the frontier of Japan or to a point within thirty-six miles of American soil. Nevertheless, whether for evil or good, the spirit of the West is not here. The leaders of Asia think, but the leaders of Europe act. Tolstoy and Kropotkin, household words in countless English homes, have done as much as almost any others to sustain the present conditions in Russia by the very elaborateness of their programmes. When England yearned as Russia yearns she found a Cromwell, not a Tolstoy. He grasped a sword and the scabbard was thrown away. He had little to say to the world, but plenty to say to the king. The gentler Russian masses idolise a man who held an open book for all the world to read, yet did little to change the constitution of his own times--so far as on the surface shows. And for all practical purposes the great Russian Empire still retains the constitution that Ruric gave his conquering hordes. Law is the word of the prince.