“No one can admire and regret Rudolf more than I do,” said Fessenden, in the even dispassionate tones which irritated the Hungarians more than his words; “but it is impossible not to notice that the inevitable legend is growing up round his name. In a few years it will obscure an individuality and a mental endowment that were better left unexaggerated. I came on the scene too late to know him, but I have heard him much discussed by more than one of his close personal friends; and while he was far more genial and sympathetic than is common among princes, and far more liberal and broad-minded, I do not in the least believe that he had a republican instinct, or would have parted voluntarily with an inch of his inheritance. Rather he would have conceived it his mission to maintain its integrity with the last corps of his army. No doubt his tact and his alert modern brain would have found a way through these difficulties which would have satisfied himself and Hungary. Problems that seem insoluble to an aged king might have been disentangled readily enough by him. But the hard fact remains that you have not Rudolf to deal with, but your king--and, for a period after him, no doubt, the present Crown Prince; so would you not be wiser to conciliate your enemies until you are strong enough to crush them? Suppose Germany and Austria in a war against Russia--over the Balkans, let us say--do you realize what your position would be as an independent state with all the antagonistic races within your borders in revolt--these races number 7,500,000, nearly half your population, do they not? In some respects the Hungarian mind is the brightest and most alert in Europe, and you are probably the only monarchical people wholly without servility. If you wreck yourselves, and this rich and enterprising country, because you love your weaknesses more than your virtues, then you deserve to be crushed like an egg between the enemies who will take a particular delight in the process. But your party does not represent Hungary. The enlightened majority are not extremists. You can obstruct and keep the country in a turmoil, but when it comes to the general vote you must be beaten. But meanwhile you are demoralizing Hungary at home, and making it ridiculous abroad--that is the point to be considered now.” Molnár pushed back his chair and stood up, tossing back his head. For the moment he looked like the statue of the poet of the Revolution, Alexander Petöfi, which, in its square across the river, seems to have the nerves of the dead man in it.