of their heart. "Dead souls" they are not.
The fire of enthusiasm is within them.

VII.

After this rapid general survey of the condition of mind of the more
advanced women in Russia I come to the tragic story of Vjera Sassulitch.
It is a story typical of the base cruelty of autocratic government;
typical also of the results such a system must needs produce.

The victim and heroine of that ever-memorable tragedy was not, at first,
a member of any secret organization. Far from it. At the age of
seventeen, Vjera, then a mere school-girl, had made the acquaintance of
another school-girl, whose brother was a student. In the course of this
innocent girlish friendship she was induced to take care of a few
letters destined for the student, Netchaieff, who afterwards played a
part in the revolutionary movement. A "Nihilist" Miss Sassulitch, at
that time, certainly was not. Her whole ambition centred in the wish of
passing her examination to qualify herself for a governess, which she
did "with distinction."

Netchaieff's democratic connections having been denounced by a traitor,
whom he thereupon slew, the school-girl of seventeen, who had known his
sister, and him through her, was thrown into prison as one "suspected"
of conspiracy. There was not a shadow of proof against her. No
accusation was even formulated against her. Nevertheless she was kept,
_for two long years_, in the Czar's Bastille--an eternity of torture for
a captive uncertain of her fate. These were the words which her counsel,
Mr. Alexandroff, addressed to the jury, when, later on, she was tried
for an attempt upon Trepoff, one of the most hated tools of despotic
profligacy:--

"The time between the eighteenth and the twentieth year--these are
the years of youth when childhood ceases; when impressions lasting
for life are most powerful; when life itself appears yet spotless
and pure. For the maiden it is the most beautiful time--the time of
budding love--the time when the girl rises to the fuller
consciousness of womanhood--the time of fanciful reverie and
enthusiasm--the time to which, in later days, as a mother and a
matron, her thoughts will yet fondly turn. Gentlemen of the jury!
you know in the company of what friends Vjera Sassulitch had to
pass her best years. The walls of a casemate were her companions.
For two years she saw neither mother, nor relations, nor friends.
Sometimes she heard