Sometimes my own people showed themselves anything but understanding and sympathetic. As my thoughts wander through the pages of memory, many shadows from the past arise before me, and I {104} think of how much good, and also how much harm, can be done by a man in a great public position. There are indeed many things in life that one must try to forget and forgive. I confess that, unfortunately, my ardent aspirations did not, in every case, meet with sympathy, even amongst my own relatives. I fully appreciated, for instance, the talents and honourable qualities of my brother-in-law, E. Novikoff, and much admired his excellent and exhaustive work on John Huss, the Czech reformer and writer, who preceded Luther by a whole century. This book, by the way, is now unfortunately out of print. But while I always remained a staunch Slavophil, E. Novikoff, after his appointment as Ambassador to Vienna, was obliged in his official capacity to obey the orders of the Foreign Office, and in so doing yielded so far to Austrian views as to become indifferent, not to say hostile, to the Slavonic cause. To me, personally, he invariably showed friendship, and invited me for a whole year to the Russian Embassy at Vienna, a visit which I greatly enjoyed. But I always avoided all reference to the subjects that henceforth divided us. This was also the case in my relations with Count Shouvaloff, at one time our Russian Ambassador in London, who instead of helping me, constantly did me harm. He was polite and ceremonious in paying me visits, but he hated my work. I am surprised indeed that he did not succeed in paralysing my efforts altogether. It is useful sometimes to be tough and obstinate! In the light of this fact there was something {105} almost comical in the comment of one journal which said: "Madame Novikoff is a Russian agent in close relations with Count Shouvaloff, and she is the sister of General Kiréeff and sister-in-law of the Russian Ambassador at Vienna. This is the person with whom our ex-premier was admittedly in close alliance, public and private, during the recent atrocity agitation. But when the climax of the pro-Russian agitation was reached, and its managers believed the overthrow of Lord Beaconsfield to be imminent, Mr. Gladstone, at the close of the St. James's Hall 'Conference,' left his seat, went up to Madame Novikoff, offered her his arm, and led her triumphantly through the bewildered crowd, in order to give them an earnest of the anti-Turkish alliance at last concluded between England and Russia, and thereby publicly acknowledged that his relations with that lady belong to the province of public life, and ought to be treated as matters of public concern. That also, we have no doubt, will be the opinion of the country when the nature of these relations has been more explicitly revealed."