[55] Several intelligent Russians tell me Nadson is their favorite poet; therefore this must be considered a serious omission. One exclaimed, "What, he writes about Fet and not Nadson!" [56] On this subject see "Russia and the Russians," by Edmund Noble. [57] "The history of Russian Literature is a martyrology." See "Russian Traits and Terrors," by E. B. Lanin, the collective signature of several writers in the Fortnightly Review. The Twentieth Century (June 26, 1897) ends its review of this volume with this sentence: "Concerning Russian prisons the book makes revelations so sickening that language is polluted by the recital of them. Swinburne's fierce ode is mild in its characterization of their brutal infamy, and it is possible, after reading these pages to agree with Ernest Belfort Bax's assertion that any sane man, knowing the facts, who pronounces it wrong to assassinate the Czar, deliberately lies."--Swinburne's poem, "Russia: An Ode," altho it contains a few weak lines, is certainly one of the most fiery outbursts in the language, and is clearly the work of a master. Here is a representative passage: "Hell recoils heart-stricken: horror worse than hell Darkens earth and sickens heaven; life knows the spell, Shudders, quails, and sinks--or, filled with fierier breath, Rises red in arms devised of darkling death. Pity mad with passion, anguish mad with shame, Call aloud on justice by her darker name; Love grows hate for love's sake; life takes death for guide. Night hath none but one red star--Tyrannicide." [58] Imagine the United States of America if Franklin had been murdered, if Irving had been knouted, if Bryant had been exiled, if Emerson had been imprisoned, if Longfellow had been starved, if Whittier had been hanged, if Holmes had been flogged, if Thoreau had been shot, if Whitman had been poisoned, if Hawthorne had been chained with iron, if Lowell had been kept in a secret dungeon, if Motley had spent his life in a mine, if Parkman had been tortured, etc., etc., etc.