In an old book—old and old-fashioned, hardly ever read now—I found a bookmark which rather interested me: two lines written on it looked large rather than bold, as if they had been scribbled by someone who already doubted the success of his appeal. It made me nervously think of many things, inclusive my far-off country. . . . Here are the two lines:

“Love me with all my faults.

Had I none—everybody would love me.”

But can the latter condition ever be obtained? Can anybody rid himself of every fault? Big countries, like single humble individuals, cannot be faultless. Can you avoid being devoted to your country? Everybody knows that devotion is in our very nature.

Montaigne was right when he explained love by saying simply: “Je t’aime —parce que c'est-toi, parce que—c'est moi!” There is no reason, in fact, for tracing the very origin of our feelings. Patriotism, perhaps, belongs to that category, and you love your country not always “because,” but very often in spite of many things. This verbose introduction was, perhaps, necessary in order to explain the cause of the following remarks. I will hasten to pass from generalities to concrete facts.

Lord Napier, British Ambassador at Petrograd, once said to me that he was always anxious to know ladies’ opinions about everything, including politics.

“I do not think you are quite sincere,” replied I, frankly. “Women are hardly ever behind the scenes; they are carried away by what they read in the papers.” (Now, when I was staying at the Russian Embassy with my brother-in-law in Vienna (he was then the Russian Ambassador), I used to read to him the “expeditions diplomatiques,” which are sent weekly by our Foreign Office to all their Representatives abroad. I was often amazed to see the difference between authentic facts and newspaper versions.

They represent, indeed, the ignorant majority. I much prefer the well-informed, intelligent minority. Remember what Socrates said when he was quizzed for having only one listener to his oration. ‘You are right,’ replied Socrates— ‘but that only man was Plato.’”

“Yet you forget,” retorted Lord Napier, “the world is governed by majorities. Men like Plato are scarce, and more appreciated after their death—seldom in their lifetime.”

“Nevertheless,” insisted I, “take one case amongst many: Look at the tendency of public opinion to find fault with everything that is done by the Government and its representatives. It is a real craving amongst our contemporary dilettante judges,” I concluded.

“You have to know and counteract everything which brings trouble and mischief,” said the Ambassador.

Here our dialogue was, unfortunately, interrupted by some unexpected visitors.

How vividly that conversation came back to my memory, when I was reading Mr. Archer's remarkable article in the Westminster Gazette a few days ago, and, on the very same day, an equally remarkable leader on that burning subject in our patriotic Petrograd paper, the Kolokol (the Bell).

Does not the almost simultaneous appearance of these protesting articles indicate already a kind of moral link in our efforts to counteract, from our respective points of view, the harm which is being sometimes done to both our countries?

Is this not also a kind of moral entente? But here are a few remarks in support of my argument.

There is a certain curious trait of character that has been noticeable among all classes of Russian society during the last years, says the Kolokol, from which I take several passages and facts. This very regrettable feature manifests itself in a general discontent with anything done by any official. I am not the only one of that opinion. Never yet have our “Intelligentsia” and our higher social circles been so carried away by this style of Nihilistic or negative criticism as at present. This pernicious style has forced its way into our Parliament, holds sway amidst the weariness and discouragement of the most moderate elements, and reigns in the very heart of those political parties that formerly struggled against it with all their strength. The defences of wholesome conservatism, indeed, have been broken through, its leaders rendered nervous and unstable; and this once strong and united party has fallen to pieces, ruined by a tendency that is typical not of our national character, but rather of the complete nervous collapse that is at this moment humiliating our national dignity.

This new phase is not the Nihilism of the sixties and eighties, against which our Slavophils, like Aksakoff and Samarin, struggled with such insistence and success. It is not content with a limited activity among the narrow and unsteady minds of the “Intelligentsia”—but it holds in its clutches our wider social and bureaucratic circles, thus proving their weakness and unreliability, and it determines the mutual relations between our society and our Government, and between our Government and bureaucracy. Breaking in upon our social life, it has taken advantage of its weariness and discord. Unlike the Nihilism of the sixties and eighties, with its leaders and its prophets, this tendency to-day poisons our social existence by an utter and futile aimlessness, a lack of programme or system or calculation in any of its impulses or strivings.

We seem nowadays to be united by nothing so much as an inexorable criticism of each other—a criticism founded on no sort of serious examination of facts. As Mr. Archer also hints, we only see each other’s faults, shut our eyes to everything good and useful that is done in our midst, and do our utmost to publish our mistakes before all the world, not that they may be righted, but only that they may be held up to derision. Is it not very like the American voter who, when asked to which party he belonged, frankly declared that he was always in opposition to every Government? Here is our national calamity, that saps our strength and our energy.

Nihilism has brought us the whole fulness of its false doctrine and its prophetic pretentions, founded on the negation of everything existing, and on the constant assertion as facts of unconfirmed and unexamined rumours. It has bred in us a love of sensation, it has banefully attracted all morbid and neurotic characters, and is now proclaiming in loud tones that we have no talents and no strong men, and it is striving by means of this unpardonable falsehood to belittle both Russia and her reputation. There can be no greater or more mischievous injustice than this.

Since when have we suddenly no strong men? Have we no organizers as enlightened by experience and knowledge and energy as any of our Allies?

We have them indeed in plenty; but, alas! one after the other, as he steps into the front ranks, he becomes a target for the poisonous shafts of abuse and mistrust. And so our great men, suffocated by these noxious gases, retreat in turn from the scene, leaving their work unfinished. Was Othello not right in his indignation: “What! in time of war? It is monstrous, monstrous, monstrous!”

Their places are taken by others and still others; and if among them now and then chance places one unfitted for his high calling, his mistakes and shortcomings are immediately attributed to all the others, with the intention of discrediting every authority and sowing mistrust towards them among the public.

Formerly, when such biassed criticism emanated only from the extreme left of our Press and our Government, public opinion looked upon it as upon the voice of a band of embittered, humiliated failures infuriated by the consciousness of their own unimportance. Later on, when this same voice thundered across the ranks of the Progressive block, the patient public interpreted it as a struggle for power. Now, however, that it has raised its cry even among representatives of the extreme right, our Russia hears in it no echo of her own soul, for the soul of Russia creates, constructs, unites dreams of unity of great aspirations, of high ideals and does not deserve that a blaspheming Nihilism should dare to raise its head and desecrate her sanctuary.

This uninvited guest, with its train of destruction, humiliation, and national abuse, has the temerity to speak in Russia’s name, and to leave its impress even on the utterances of our well known men. It has entangled some formerly staunch party leaders in the maze of foggy rumour and has transformed some of our so-called politicians into street hawkers.

A remark which I particularly like is ascribed to Napoleon; his opinion about our soldiers. Himself a great warrior he declared that, “It is not enough to kill a Russian soldier, a Russian soldier will never desert his post until he is not only killed but actually pulled down to the ground.”

In a certain sense, have we not all to cling to our posts, even when others think that we are killed and quite dead?

Life has often been compared to a battle, and every mortal to a combatant in that battle. The crying necessity of the moment is for fighters like the Russian soldiers, as described by the French Emperor, patriots, persevering and self-sacrificing to the last second of their lives.

One would think that in time of war, with the appearance of the enemy, there would arise simultaneously a series of national and patriotic duties. There should certainly follow great privations, self-oblivious sacrifices, the banishment of all personal interests. The proverb runs: “Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves.” A very good proverb in time of peace, but in time of war we must not look after our pennies, even if they take the shape of pounds, when we give them for our country. Rather let us recall the Romans advice, ‘‘De minimis non curat praetor”.

But there is one patriotic duty in particular which is unfortunately honoured in the breach as well as in the observance—namely, the abolition of political bickerings.

I observe in England a wise regulation introduced into all the establishments which are declared to be under Government. There nobody is permitted to leave his post on his own good pleasure. In time of war many things obtain entirely new values. Can there be anything more miserable than these personal interests when there is an ocean of high duties before us?

Should not the same principle of self-devotion manifest itself in every position, high or low? Yet is it not amazing to see how these elementary duties are sometimes neglected?

Day after day, the readers of our most influential Russian newspapers are confronted with articles and suggestions and insinuations.

One would think, that since a newspaper is not a secret communication, but a printed, public, black and white statement of its own sympathies and tendencies, it would be easier correctly to estimate these tendencies by the evidence of articles published in the paper in question, than by premature problematical conjectures. It is only fair to add, however, that one of the newspapers shows the praiseworthy example of preferring to ask the censorship to read all their publications beforehand. That censorship is not always immaculate is no doubt true, and I was convinced of that from my own experience. When I published a book in defence of Russia, which, thanks to Mr. Gladstone and numerous other reviewers, met with tremendous success, on sending it to Russia I learned, to my amazement, that it was prohibited by the Censors because it contained a long chapter on the Zemsky Sobor: meetings of representatives summoned by the Government, which often made themselves admirably useful to Russia. Thus, in the year 1612 it was thanks to these assemblies’ voice that a defensive war was declared against Poland and carried through victoriously. Many amongst them had to pay £300 for mistakes which have been made, perhaps inadvertently, in their columns. These fines occurred since the declaration of the freedom of the Press.

Our great novelist, Count Leon Tolstoy, once made a joke at my expense, “I tell you what you should always wear on your belt,” he said—“a little rapier; it will be quite in harmony with your nature.”

“Oh no!” I protested, “weapons and ideas—which are also weapons in a certain sense—ought not to be exhibited as sign-boards. They become blunt from contact with the air.” I might have added: “Besides, it is bad diplomacy to proclaim one’s views on the housetops, but I very seldom thought of diplomacy in my youthful days.”

But Nihilism requires all this noise—and so our agitators must continue to be futile and blind, and not to be particular about the means they employ to attain their ends.

Nihilism indeed does not even limit itself to abusing “the powers that be”—it attacks representative people in all spheres: in society, in trade, in finance, in agriculture. For the definite mistake of any one special person, it hisses poisonously against entire social circles, and makes an outcry on unfounded charges of bribery, corruption and all possible crimes. It criticizes everything and everybody, and drags its libellous and uninvestigated accusations alike through the peasants’ cottage, the nobleman’s castles, the Government office.

Such is my humble diagnosis of contemporary tendencies—this diagnosis is suggested by no party feeling nor political interest, but is dictated solely by conscience and love for the interests of Russia.

One more word. The question arises in my mind: Is all this storm of ruinous criticism in our midst really typical of our national mentality and moral outlook? No! and again no!

This is not Russian at all. And well-informed people—thank God we still possess a few of these—ascribe that degenerating tendency to German influence in Russia.

In conclusion, I would like briefly to say that the Westminster Gazette has rendered a service to the Allies in publishing Mr. Archer’s article.

What a good New Year’s gift that article was to all the thinking and reading public!

An eminent English judge once remarked: “The truth will out even in an affidavit, but, unfortunately, it takes time for truth to become transformed into a truism and enlighten everybody. Nor does this always happen.”

There is but this remedy to the above disease—fortunately there is a remedy—unswerving devotion to your country and Truth.

“Time is onward slowly pressing,

Years are telling my decline,

Yet I cling with fond caressing

To the moments that are mine.

“While I tread with footsteps firmer

Ever near and nearer Truth,

Often lost amidst the murmur

And the restless dreams of youth.”