all like a
pellet on the hide of an elephant. The popular cries which madden other
races are utterly meaningless to the docile, unemotional "mujik," loyal
and conservative to the very marrow of his bones.

But the vivifying of these petrified millions may safely be left to the
influence of time. The provincial schools recently established may be
trusted to do their work, however slowly; and the "educated Russia"
dreamed of by Alexander I. may yet crown the age of Alexander II. Those
who, like the writer, have lived in the villages of the interior, and
have seen the Russian peasant as he really is, cannot but have hopes of
his future, in the teeth of the hasty and one-sided observers who love
to depict him as a brute with the single human attribute of dishonesty.
The ignorance, sluggishness and intemperance of the mujik belong to the
system under which he has been reared: his frank hospitality, cheery
good-humor and simple child-like piety are all his own. To raise these
brave, simple natures out of the unwholesome darkness which has so long
imprisoned them is a noble and Christian work; as far above the mere
material emancipation of 1861 as the soul is above the body.

D. K.

A MIDSUMMER NOON'S PHANTASM.

"Ghosts? No, I don't believe in ghosts: I have seen too many of them,"
is a very fair thing on one of the oldest of subjects. My case is
different. I have been trying all my life to believe in ghosts, and saw
my first four days ago. Toward noon I fell into a doze--very short and
slight it must have been--over my book. No one was in the room, and the
door was closed. The book was held up in the usual position, a little
below the level of the eye, in the right hand. I awoke--if the word can
be applied to what was so very slight a slumber--and saw limned with
perfect distinctness against the page the head of a girl or boy six or
eight years old, blue-eyed, light-haired, and fair but not clear in
complexion. It was below life-size, not more than four inches in height.
Only the head was visible, without anything below the jaw. At first it
seemed perfectly solid, but the lines of print, which were still held up
as in reading, gradually showed themselves through the fading apparition
until it entirely died away. This happened in about a third of a minute,
the beautiful little face continuing the whole time to gaze at me with a
calm but not sad expression. It was not in full front, the right side
being turned to me