but a great temporary wooden shed--such as is run up every
year at the holidays, in the public squares. When the fire burst forth,
crowds of peasants hurried to the spot; but though they heard the
shrieks of the dying, separated from them only by a thin planking, only
one man in that multitude dared cut through and rescue some of the
sufferers.

The serfs, when standing for great ideas, would die rather than yield.
Napoleon I learned this at Eylau; Napoleon III learned it at Sebastopol;
yet in daily life they were slavish beyond belief. On a certain day, in
the year 1855, the most embarrassed man in all Russia 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 never had 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.

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 self 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 was neither of serfs nor serf-owners, the curse of
God was written in letters so big and so black that all mankind might
read them. Farms were untilled, enterprise deadened, invention crippled,
education neglected; life was of little value; labor was 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 remained stagnant.
Not one traveller who do