THE

HE title of Mr. Norman's work is ambitious and would awaken misgivings, especially in those who also are partially acquainted with some aspects of the vast and wondrous empire he undertakes to describe. But the preface is more modest. In it he allows that he does not dream of attempting "a comprehensive account of Russian institutions and Russian life." This, indeed, is not even contained in Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace's two volumes, still less in Mr. Foulke's brief and prejudiced sketches in Slav or Saxon." But Mr. Norman's views on things Russian are based on personal knowledge, which has not been acquired without painstaking efforts, and on closing the volume one must freely admit that we have nothing in the English tongue which gives such a masterly appreciation of Russian tendencies, or a more graphic presentment of the many details which unite to fix a lasting picture on the mind. The author declares that it has been his strenuous endeavour to be fair and frank in his judgments, and, so far as one may, to divest himself of inborn and acquired prejudice." So far as one may! This saving clause disarms criticism, and we think that Mr. Norman himself, who often confesses his inability to understand certain phases of thought, will not hesitate to concede that, spite his "strenuous endeavours," the inborn remains ineradicable, and must throughout be reckoned with.

As yet, dissimilarity of language, customs, and ideas keep the English and Russian races apart-unsympathetic, if not antagonistic. It is always a It is always a puzzling and unwelcome fact to an Englishman to find as much freedom as he wants in a land he has been taught to believe the home of despotic tyranny, as well as to observe that the intellectual development of the upper classes is so much superior to that of the majority of his compatriots in the same stratum. Russia has a civilisation of

1 "Travels and Studies in Contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia." By Henry Norman, M.P. (Heinemann).

its own which has produced most satisfactory results, even while it has not yet reached to the numberless masses. The fine arts flourish with a success that modern Britain cannot rival, for Tschaikowsky, Rubinstein, Tolstoi are only chief among a galaxy of lesser lights. The average Russian gentlewoman devotes so much more time to the cultivation of the brain than her British sister that there can be no comparison between the two. While a friendly climate allows of out-door pursuits, which occupy a great portion of the English woman's time, and are certainly beneficial to the health of the rising generation-after all a most important factor in human existence the rigours of a long northern winter either exile the Russian lady to centres of Latin culture and refinement, or immure her in the family manor with books for companions, and facilities of fulfilling the task assigned, as nowhere else, to the mother-that of imparting knowledge to her sons. Home education is a great motor in a man's and a nation's life, and it is intense in Russia. We think Mr. Norman might have found in it the explanation of that unity of thought culminating in a fervid patriotism, which seems to strike him as so characteristic of Russian nationality. But he touches little on social topics, and his work is incomplete without a chapter devoted to the mental culture of the Russian woman, more familiar with John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer than their own compatriots. Cherchez la femme! A close observance of the ways and manners of thousands of mothers, highly instructed and patriotic, training the diplomats, soldiers, and statesmen of the future, and instilling into them the conviction of their heaven-assigned mission, rather than researches among the barbarous races of Asian Russia, would best reveal the cause of Russian preponderance to-day, and answer the question which Mr. Norman puts before himself and his readers in his first chapter—

What is Russia? The unfettered, irresponsible, limitless, absolute rule of one man over a hundred millions of his fellows-is that it? The ikon in the corner of every room where the language is spoken, the bluedomed basilica in every street of great cities, the long-haired priests chanting in deep bass, the pedestrian ceaselessly crossing himself, the Holy Synod, whose God-given task is to coerce or to cajole a heathen world to orthodoxy-is that Russia? Or is it the society of the capital, speaking all languages, familiar with all literatures, practising every art, lapped in every luxury, esteeming manners more highly than

morals? Or is it the vast and nearly roadless country, where settlements are to distances like fly-specks to window-panes; where the conveniences, the comforts, and often the decencies of civilization may be sought in vain outside the towns and away from the lines of railway; where entire villages are the prey of disease; where seven people out of every ten can neither read nor write?

Siberia is Russia-five million square miles in which whole countries are a quivering carpet of wild-flowers in spring, a rolling grain-field in autumn, an ice-bound waste in winter, stored full of every mineral, crossed by the longest railway in the world, and largely inhabited by a population of convicts and exiles.

Central Asia is Russia-a million and a half square miles of barren desert and irrigated oasis, the most famous cities of Asia and the greatest river, a few years ago the hotbed of Mussulman fanaticism, probably the cradle of the human race, and possibly the scene of its most fateful conflict.

The Eastern Question is-how will Russia try again to get Constantinople? The Far Eastern Question is-will Russia succeed in dominating China? A question of questions for the British Empire is -will Russia invade India?

The Triple Alliance is a league against Russia. The Dual Alliance is Russia's reply. Russia called the nations to a Peace Conference.

It would be easier to say what is not Russia. In world affairs, wherever you turn you see Russia; whenever you listen you hear her! She moves in every path; she is mining in every claim. The "creeping murmur" of the world is her footfall-the "poring dark" is her veil. To the challenge of the nations, as they peer from their borders, comes ever the same reply-" Who goes there?"

66 Russia!"

Not discouraged but incited by the myriad aspects that await him, Mr. Norman sets forth bravely from prosaic Charing Cross to challenge the sphinx, in a journey which comes to an end only when he knocks his nose against the Chinese Wall. Of all he has run over in the interval, he gives us a rapid and brilliant account, illustrated with the most beautiful photographs, and with multitudinous facts and statistics to bear out his observations. Great care has evidently been bestowed upon the compilation of these, so that besides the agreeable reading we possess a precious book of reference. The leading chapters however are misleading, for we find therein nothing beyond the usual superficial impressions of the passing traveller. Again, there is less time devoted to the capital-the brain of the huge giant-than to one of the semi-savage Asiatic tribes, whose ways and manners cannot have much interest for the ordinary student of Russian life, inasmuch as they are being daily assimilated to the great mass, and are absolutely without

influence on the general tenor of things. Like the Russia ns themselves, our traveller finds the capital too cosmopolitan

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If it were to be rebuilt now it would resemble Moscow and not Milan. The fashion of imitating the West has passed; to-day to be patriotic is to be Russian, and so far from following the mode of the outside world, to wait confidently till the outside world shall learn that the Russian mode is better and shall lay aside its heathenism, its parliamentarianism, its socialism, the licence it calls liberty, and all its other wickednesses, and walk in the only path of religious truth and social security.

There is no doubt that Mr. Norman has glimpsed the sights of Petersburg; he has raced through the museums, perhaps even walked through the Hermitage, with its store of souvenirs of the great Peter; he has certainly seen the monuments. By the way, he tells us that the date of the consecration of St. Isaac's Cathedral is that of his own birth,-which leaves us still enquiring. Never mind; we shall look it up,—with a heightened interest. He has driven to the island parks: "the most beautiful town drive in Europe," he has "done" the Winter Palace and then starts further with a free conscience. The impressions he bears away are mainly three: the gentle manners of the Russian police; the costliness of Russian life; the vexing fact that the houses are always so pleasantly heated that his woollen underclothing is a nuisance, and overcoats, according to the thermometer, advisable instead.

Having disposed of St. Petersburg to his satisfaction, he finds that about Moscow he could write a volume :

The magnificent white railway station, with "God save the Tsar in permanent gas letters over the portal, is where the great Siberian train starts for Vladivostock and Port Arthur. These strange, darkrobed men sitting by themselves at the Bourse, turbaned or fur-hatted, are Russian subjects from Central Asia. Russia is a great manufacturing country now; Moscow is one of the manufacturing cities of the world. Napoleon looms large in Russian history: from those low hills a few miles away he looked down upon the splendid prey he was about to seize; through this gate he entered the citadel; ir that church his horses were stabled. A Romanoff Tsar rules Russia; this is the house where the first Romanoff to become a Tsar lived as a simple seigneur ; and here are the tombs of all the Ruriks and Romanoffs who ruled when St. Petersburg was a swamp. Russia is a theocracy; Moscow is the holy city, consecrated and consecrating. Under whatever aspect Russia of to day presents herself to you, in Moscow you may find it embodied, for Russia sprang from Moscow, and the Dukes of Moscovy laid the foundation-stones.

Since the coronation of 1896, everybody has read of the wonderful churches of Moscow, of its brilliant colouring, of its historic interest, of

the piety of its people. Yet I cannot refrain from dwelling for a moment on this, for Moscow produces a unique and ineffaceable impression. There is no city in the world like it. The Imperial city in the centre of Peking, seen from the walls where Marco Polo's instruments stood until the Germans purloined them, has something of its blue and green and gold. Its fantastic architecture recalls the eaves and the watchtowers of Korea. Its narrow Eastern streets remind one of Sarajevo. Its holy images, literally innumerable, and the pious passer, elaborately bowing and crossing himself again and again, suggest Lourdes at pilgrimage time. But as a whole Moscow is like nothing but

Moscow a city apart, beyond description.

Á propos of the Tsar's Coronation in the Church of the Assumption we have the following fine passages :

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He is so incomparably greater than all other men that nobody but himself can hallow and ordain him King. So exalted and remote and sacred is he that not even the chief servant of God is high enough to place the crown upon his brow. . . . And it is sober truth that to the majority of the people who live in these places (that he governs as absolute master) the man who thus crowns himself in the House of God becomes thereby something more than human-a semi-divine person. . . . There is nothing like it in the world; probably no such claim has ever been put forth elsewhere as is regularly made in this Church when Tsar succeeds Tsar-certainly no such claim has ever been so widely and so sincerely allowed. . . . A well-known story tells that in a Russian battle not so long ago, the artillery, urgently needed in front to save the day, was stopped by a deep ditch. The soldiers thereupon flung themselves in until the ditch was full, and the artillery galloped over their bodies. The incident, whether fact or fiction, illustrates the relation of the common people of Russia to their Sovereign. . . . And in the highest society of all, whatever views it may privately hold and express, the Tsar, as the source of promotion and the foundation of honours and emoluments, dwells alone upon the heights.

The relation between high and low in Russia is a puzzle to most English travellers and Mr. Norman dismisses it in a few words. The Russian aristocracy is supercilious only to foreigners, and its total want of snobbery towards inferiors is a distinctive feature. Nevertheless, the bar is never over-stepped, and any amount of intimacy and familiarity between master and servant serves but to heighten the respectful affection of the latter for his "little father." Mistress and maid are often fast friends. There is no aspiring Mary Janes, but, as a rule, devoted humble creatures, happy in their lot of faithful worshipping attendants. It is a usual thing to have three generations in a Russian nobleman's house; the nurse or nania who has never left her charge and now becomes housekeeper and general supervisor; her daughter trained as maid, cook or laundress, or her son as