tem can be judged without
a knowledge of personal facts relating to its bearer. A sketch of the
character of Alexander II. and of his strange acts of "benevolence,"
will make it clear to the commonest comprehension why his antagonists
should at last have met him by wild deeds of conspiracy.

Alexander's arbitrary bias may be said to have been inherited in his
blood. A disposition, originally, perhaps, less severe than that of
Nicholas, was darkened and vitiated in him from his early days. Custine
already remarked the expression of deep melancholy in the Grand Duke;
and all those who have seen Alexander II. since have been struck with
his sour and sullen morosity. No smile ever lights up this "humane"
Czar's face. His uneasy glance is that of the misanthrope; his brow
seems overcast as with the lowering shadow of a tragic fate. The harsh
way in which he was brought up by his martinet father, without the
slightest regard for his somewhat delicate health, no doubt laid a
foundation for this pensive sadness, which, under a pernicious Court
atmosphere, and with the terrible recollections crowding about his
family history, gradually changed into the fierceness of the Tyrant.

Poor royal humanity is sometimes strangely led up to its task in life.
Almost from infancy the sickly boy had to don the soldier's uniform. All
joyous sprightliness was crushed out of the infantine heir of a
barbarous Imperialism. His education by the crowned corporal who
happened to be his parent, appeared to aim mainly at making him
physically and in character as rigid as a ramrod. By nature of a
sensuous bent, he had to undergo all the ordeals of barrack-room
practices, which Nicholas held to be the proper sum and substance of
human life.

The stern nature and teaching of that typical tyrant came out one day in
a striking manner during the early boyhood of Alexander. Even Imperial
children do not seem to be able to shake off the dark historical
recollections that hang about the Winter Palace. In the manner of
children they will make a ghastly sport of them. Once, when they were in
a specially jocular mood, Alexander, in company with his brother
Constantine and some comrades in play, enacted--as youngsters in their
apishly imitative mood will do--one of the most hideous scenes that
concluded a previous reign. The throttling of the Emperor Paul was the
subject! Alexander, standing for Paul, was assaulted and thrown down by
his brother, who knelt upon