As for Russia, and the assumed Slavonic menace, one must tread somewhat diffidently where George Bernard Shaw has rushed in with characteristic Shavian impetuosity. The world owes to Mr. Shaw the discovery of a new nationality—himself; and it is impossible for any citizen of the world to ignore the obligation. But even if Russia achieves her never-forgotten dream of Constantinople and a purified St. Sophia, Europe and civilization will not necessarily stand aghast, trembling at each rumor of Cossack brutalities. Tennyson, who foresaw the aërial navies “grappling in the central blue,” indeed proclaimed, in one of the most execrable of his sonnets, that— “… The heart of Poland hath not ceased To quiver, though her sacred blood doth drown The fields, and out of every smouldering town Cries to Thee, lest brute power be increased Till that o’ergrown barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bounds to some new crown: Cries to Thee, ‘Lord, how long shall these things be, How long this icy-hearted Muscovite Oppress the region?’…” (I quote from memory, deprecating caustic correction). But, in spite of anti-Semitic atrocities (are the hands of other nations so clean now? They were foul once), and in spite of the blunders of a rigid bureaucracy, the Russian nation is not necessarily a menace to civilization: it has within it the elements of a wonderful idealism, and whether autocracy may remain, or may not remain, as the outward and visible form of government, the spirit of democracy is leavening the people, and “Holy Russia” has in truth already been sanctified by the blood of her innumerable martyrs—sometimes, perhaps, misguided and mistaken; but offering to the world an example of idealism and self-sacrifice that should surely dispel the nightmare of Russian brutishness. I may record here, quite irrelevantly, my own fervent wish (irrevocably established at the immature age of twelve years) that Poland, with few of her limbs amputated, should be replaced upon the map as an independent, and again powerful, nation. It was one of my earliest dreams that I should be awakened at the dawn of a wintry day, and urged by a delegation of Polish magnates to accept the one throne of Europe that had been, and still should be, open to conspicuous (and electoral) merit. That wish has not yet been gratified, and candor compels me to attribute it to the delightful influence of the elder Dumas, from whom I derived also my most enduring impressions of St. Bartholomew, Catherine de Medici, Mazarin, Louis XIII, Richelieu, Buckingham, Louis XIV, Louise de la Vallière, d’Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, Porthos, and other immortals. India, I confess, held me equally spellbound: for many months I hesitated between the succession to Aurungzebe (why should I now spell the name differently?) and the crown of Stanislaus. That hesitation has been fatal: I am still throneless.