I will now give a few minor instances illustrating the indulgent attitude of the Russian character towards certain moral delinquencies. In a regiment which I came across in Manchuria during the war there were two men; one was conscientious, brave to the verge of heroism, self-sacrificing, punctilious in the performance of his duty, and exacting in the demands he made on others as to the fulfilment of theirs, untiringly energetic, competent in every way, but severe and uncompromising. There was another man who was incurably lax in the performance of his duty, not scrupulously honest where the Government money was concerned, incompetent, but as kind as a human being can be. I once heard a Russian doctor who was attached to this regiment discussing and comparing the characters of the two men, and, after weighing the pros and cons, he concluded that as a man the latter was superior. Dishonesty in dealings with the public money seemed to him an absolutely trifling fault. The unswerving performance of duty, and all the great military qualities which he noted in the former, did not seem to him to count in the balance against the great kindness of heart possessed by the latter; and most of the officers agreed with him. It never seemed to occur to these men that any one set of qualities, such as efficiency, conscientiousness, or honesty, were more indispensable, or in any way superior to any other set of qualities. They just noticed the absence of them in others, or, as often happened, in themselves, and thought they were amply compensated for by the presence of other qualities, such as good-nature or amiability. And one notices in Russian literature that authors such as Dostoievsky are not content with showing us the redeeming points of a merely bad character, that is to say, of a man fundamentally good, but who indulges in vice or in crime; but they will take pleasure in showing you the redeeming points of a character which at first sight appears to be radically mean and utterly despicable. The aim of these authors seems to be to insist that, just as nobody is indispensable, so nobody is superfluous. There is no such thing as a superfluous man; and any man, however worthless, miserable, despicable and mean he may seem to be, has just as much right to be understood as any one else; and they show that, when he is understood, he is not, taking him as a whole, any worse than his fellow-creatures. Another characteristic which strikes one in Russian literature, and still more in Russian life, especially if one has mingled in the lower classes, is the very deeply rooted sense of pity which the Russians possess. An Englishman who is lame, and whom I met in Russia, told me that he had experienced there a treatment such as he had never met before in any other country. The people, and especially the poor, noticed his lameness, and, guessing what would be difficult for him to do, came to his aid and helped him.