If I say that I never saw the evil side of Gregory Rasputin I shall be called a liar or a fool--perhaps, more chivalrously, the latter. It is, however, the truth when I say that we never saw the evil side of him. May I, therefore, plead for a hearing on the grounds that some men possess dual natures, and that they adapt these to the company in which they find themselves? I have heard of men who at home have led most moral lives, leading elsewhere existences before which an up-to-date French novel is as naught. Yet they never betrayed themselves to their nearest and dearest. Their friends were likewise deceived. Perhaps this dark side was never discovered, and they died and were buried as undefiled Christians. But even if something unforeseen had disclosed the man’s secret orchard, his inner life, and his frailities, their existence even then would most probably have been disbelieved by those who had known him intimately for years. A person tells you that your dearest friend is a liar and a sensualist. Do you believe him? Rarely, I think, if you are worthy to call yourself a friend. You advise the traducer to make himself or herself scarce, and, if you allow your mind to become poisoned by slow dropping venom, you place yourself at once on a level with the slanderer. The Empress refused to believe ill of Rasputin because she had never seen the evil side of him, and also because both she and the Emperor had extended the hand of friendship to him. There was no question of affection in her continual refusal to disown him, no phase of the passing passions which distinguished Catherine the Great, and which were so kindly tolerated by her subjects. The Empress inherited much of her illustrious grandmother’s tenacity of purpose, and she refused to be dictated to. In this, she was the woman of character who resembled Queen Victoria. I do not wish to compare Rasputin with John Brown--they are as the poles apart--but what I wish to point out in connection with both of these persons, is that Queen Victoria and the Empress called John Brown and Gregory Rasputin their friends, and neither family disapproval nor public censure was a sufficient reason in their eyes to merit the sacrifice of a friend. There the similarity ends. Gregory Rasputin arrived in Petrograd from Siberia on a pilgrimage, walking the entire way with irons on his body in order to make his progress more painful and difficult. If a pilgrim were to arrive in London from Edinburgh in similar circumstances he would be taken before a magistrate, and most probably sent to a lunatic asylum; these things do not happen in England, but they were of daily occurrence in Russia. We were so accustomed to the miraculous that I do not think the average Russian would have manifested any surprise if he had been accosted in the street by the Angel Gabriel!