After supper I had some talk with Prince Gortchakoff, who was always very kind to me, and often used to come up and have a little chat when we met in society. We naturally talked about the New Year’s Day festivities, and he went on to expatiate on the religiosity of the Russian mind, and how to every man in the country Russia was _Holy_ Russia. He said that few people knew how deeply this feeling was ingrained in the minds of the _mujiks_, to whom it was a horror to think that they might be buried anywhere but in their own country. He gave as an instance of this the case of a Russian who, when the Prince was Secretary of Legation in London, was coachman in the service of the Duke of Devonshire. The man asked for him one day at the Legation. On the Prince inquiring what he wanted, he said that he wanted to go back home. “What!” said the Prince, “leave so good a place and so good a master. Of what have you to complain?” The man said, “Of nothing—but I am afraid lest I should die here and be buried out of Holy Russia.” So close was his attachment to the sacred soil that though there was no other cause for nostalgia, and he was perfectly happy where he was, he must go home for fear of this terrible thing happening. It reminded one of the Chinese travelling to California with their coffins for the return journey to the Middle Kingdom. These things make a man think. Three days afterwards, to my great surprise, I was invited by the Prince to a great diplomatic dinner at which all the Ambassadors and Ministers were present, with certain members of the Government. There were no ladies invited. Of course the conversation turned chiefly upon the Danish question, which was reaching a very acute stage. When the time to leave arrived, Prince Gortchakoff detained Lord Napier with the Prussian, Austrian, Swedish and French representatives for a private conference. I am not a resurrectionist and find little relish in digging among the graves of dead questions. The disputes over the Danish duchies are long since dead and buried, though the ambitions of the men who lit the torch of war still live, and the torch is still blazing. Those disputes were the opportunity of one master mind, the puzzle of others, and the joy of many dullard diplomatists who loved to flounder choking among the shoals and whirlpools of a sea of troubles; at that time, they were the despair of those slaves of the pen, of whom I, so long as I was at the Foreign Office, was one, whose task it was to cover reams upon reams of foolscap with reports of endless conversations with Princekins and Ministers at small German courts, retailed by minor diplomatic lights with all the ineptitude of pompous verbosity.