o a
moral turpitude masked by diplomatic subterfuges. But there is not one.

Although the question of the balance of power was of importance to all,
it was England and Russia to whom the interests involved in the Eastern
Question were most vital. Every year which made England's Indian
Empire a more important possession also increased the necessity for her
having free access to it; while Russian policy more and more revolved
about an actual and a potential empire in the East. So just because
they were natural enemies they became allies, each desiring to tie the
other's hands by the principle of Ottoman integrity.

But daily and noiselessly the Russian outposts crept toward the East;
first into Persia, then stretching out the left hand toward Khiva,
pressing on through Bokhara into Chinese territory; and then, with a
prescience of coming events which should make Western Europe tremble
before such a subtle instinct for power, Russia obtained from the
Chinese Emperor the privilege of establishing at Canton a school of
instruction where Russian youths--prohibited from attending European
universities--might learn the Chinese language and become familiarized
with Chinese methods! But this was the sort of instinct that impels a
glacier to creep surely toward a lower level. Not content with owning
half of Europe and all of Northern Asia, the Russian glacier was moving
noiselessly,--as all things must,--on the line of least resistance,
toward the East.

The Emperor Nicholas, who comprehended so well the secret of imperial
expansion, and so little understood the expanding qualities within his
empire, was an impressive object to look upon. With his colossal
stature and his imposing presence, always tightly buttoned in his
uniform, he carried with him an air of majesty never to be forgotten if
once it was seen. But while he supposed he was extinguishing the
living forces and arresting the advancing power of mind in his empire,
a new world was maturing beneath the smooth hard surface he had
created. The Russian intellect, in spite of all, was blossoming from
seed scattered long before his time. There were historians, and poets,
and romanticists, and classicists, just as in the rest of Europe.
There were the conservative writers who felt contempt for the West, and
for the new, and who believed Russia was as much better before Ivan
III. than after, as Ivan the Great was superior to Peter the Great; and
there were Pushkin an