Transcriber's Note Words printed in italic font are marked with _underscores_. RUSSIAN ESSAYS AND STORIES BY THE SAME AUTHOR A YEAR IN RUSSIA WITH THE RUSSIANS IN MANCHURIA RUSSIAN ESSAYS AND STORIES BY MAURICE BARING AUTHOR OF “A YEAR IN RUSSIA” ETC. METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published in 1908_ DEDICATED TO EVAN CHARTERIS DEDICATION TO EVAN CHARTERIS MY DEAR EVAN,--This book, which you expressed a wish I should dedicate to you, consists of short essays and stories dealing entirely with Russian subjects. These essays (which deal with Russia) are in no sense political. I will not go so far as to say they are uninteresting; such modesty is, as Bacon once pointed out, a gross form of boasting; besides which it is a mistake. If one underrates one’s wares one is taken at one’s word. I have found this out to my cost. Once when I was competing in a Civil Service Examination, and appeared as a candidate in the German _viva voce_, the German examiner asked me if I could speak German. “Yes, a little,” I answered modestly. “Oh!” said the examiner, “I will then wish you good morning. I will no doubt have the pleasure of seeing you again the next time there is an examination.” The next time there was an examination and I presented myself again to the German _viva voce_ examiner, who happened to be a different man, when he asked me if I could speak German, I replied thus-- “Yes, I speak it as well as Bismarck spoke it, and my written style combines the solidity of Lessing’s, the limpidity of Goethe’s, and the lightness of touch of Heine’s, as you have no doubt observed from my written papers.” “Then I need not trouble you any further,” said the examiner. This time I got full marks.