he shrieks of the dying,--separated from
them only by a thin planking,--only one man, in all that multitude,
dared cut through and rescue some of the sufferers.

The serfs, when standing for great ideas, will die rather than yield.
The first Napoleon learned this at Eylau,--the third Napoleon learned
it at Sevastopol; yet in daily life they are slavish beyond belief. On
a certain day in the year 1855, the most embarrassed man in all the
Russias was, doubtless, our excellent American Minister. The
serf-coachman employed at wages was called up to receive his discharge for
drunkenness. Coming into the presence of a sound-hearted American
democrat, who had never dreamed of one mortal kneeling to another, Ivan
throws himself on his knees, presses his forehead to the Minister's
feet, fawns like a tamed beast, and refuses to move until the Minister
relieves himself from this nightmare of servility by a full pardon.

The whole working of the system has been fearful.

Time after time, we have entered the serf field and serf hut,--have
seen the simple round of serf toils and sports,--have heard the simple
chronicles of serf joys and sorrows. But whether his livery were filthy
sheepskin or gold-laced caftan,--whether he lay on carpets at the door
of his master, or in filth on the floor of his cabin,--whether he gave
us cold, stupid stories of his wrongs, or flippant details of his
joys,--whether he blessed his master or cursed him,--we have wondered at
the power which a serf-system has to degrade and imbrute the image of
God.

But astonishment was increased a thousand fold at study of the reflex
influence for evil upon the serf-owners themselves,--upon the whole
free community,--upon the very soil of the whole country.

On all those broad plains of Russia, on the daily life of that
serf-owning aristocracy, on the whole class which is neither of serfs
nor serf-owners, the curse of God is written in letters so big and so
black that all mankind may read them.

Farms are untilled, enterprise deadened, invention crippled,
education neglected; life is of little value; labor is the badge of
servility,--laziness the very badge and passport of gentility.

Despite the most specious half-measures,--despite all efforts to
galvanize it, to coax life into it, to sting life into it, the nation
has remained stagnant. Not one traveller who does not know that the
evils brought on that land by the despotism of the Autocrat are as
nothing com