He then poked his arm up to the elbow in the straw and shavings that wrapped up Dzhirjinsky, until satisfied that it was not a Christmas bran pie. I then got it nailed down again, and accepted the newspaper reporters’ invitation to drive with them from the quay to the station. There another man met me armed with a kodak and a flashlight. I sympathise with professional keenness, but I will not be butchered to make a Roman holiday. The moment seemed inappropriate. There were inebriated young fellows shouting, singing, and falling about the stations to such an extent that the policeman, who had vainly tried to look the other way, had finally to take notice, but he had to knock one of them down before he could arrest him. It was a revolting sight to which one had grown unaccustomed. I was glad to get into my sleeper and shut out the sight and sound of Newcastle at midnight. Since then my soul, my life, my time, has been no longer my own. I have been pursued, besieged, harassed, feasted, attacked, appraised in turn. I have seen the anti-Bolshevik in all his glory of prejudice, hate and bitterness. The Bolshevik is a new phenomenon, but the anti-Bolshevik is merely history repeating itself. We read of the same condition of mind in England after the Napoleonic wars; the same fear of French Revolutionary ideas, and same action and reactions. Yet, if people would only realise it, Revolutions are not caused by propaganda, nor by plots. In Russia the Revolution failed every time it was organised. It was brought about by cause and effect at the very moment when the present leaders were in exile in the four corners of the globe. Alexinsky says in his “Modern Russia”: “Seek for the cause of Revolution neither in the ardent propaganda of the Revolutionists--nor in the bad qualities of monarchs and their advisers, but in the deep and silent operation of certain forces, which lead new social classes upon the stage of history.” It is futile to waste hate upon these forces, or to call them Lenin and Trotsky, when really it is the law of evolution and change that is demonstrating in certain parts of the earth. _THE END._ THE BOTOLPH PRINTING WORKS, 8, GATE STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.2. FOOTNOTES: [1] Earl Midleton, Peper Harow, Godalming, Surrey. [2] Sydney Russell Cooke. [3] Oswald Frewen, my brother. [4] Richard Brinsley Sheridan, born September 20th, 1915. [5] Lady Randolph Churchill. [6] Dr. Axel Munthe, San Michele, Anacapri, Italy. [7] Madame Leo Kameneff. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Russian Portraits, by Clare Sheridan