Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/217

 me the most valuable portion of my big manuscript into a small volume for private circulation. While engaged on this condensation, I received one day a visit from an old friend, Mr. Ralston, of the British Museum, who was known as a writer on Russian folklore and Turgenief's novels. He had been invited, he said, by Messrs. Cassell to write a popular book on Russia, but he felt that I was much more competent for such a task, and he had spoken in this sense to Mr. Teignmouth Shore. That gentleman, he added, wished to see me, and I consented to call on him without delay.

"At first the interview was very unpromising, because what was wanted by the firm was a thoroughly popular book, and that was not at all the sort of book I wished to publish. At considerable length he explained to me that when the public are invited to a banquet the viands must be cooked to suit the tastes of the guests. Such arguments had very little effect upon me for some time, but I gradually succumbed. 'If,' I rather vainly argued in my mind, 'this gentleman imagines that my reluctance to follow his advice proceeds from inability on my part to write in a popular style, I will show him he is wrong!' Thereupon, influenced more by egotism of youth than by sound reasoning, I gradually capitulated, and before leaving the room I had undertaken to write an instructive work on Russia, in popular form, within the short space of three months.

"I fulfilled my engagement, and in the first two days of January, 1877, 'Russia' appeared in two stout volumes. Its immediate success was largely due to the fact that at that moment the Tsar was on the eve of going to war with Turkey, and the European public followed with intense interest the development and results of the struggle. In the course of a few months the two volumes were translated into half a dozen European languages—French, German, Swedish, Danish, Hungarian, Russian, Croatian—and afterwards into Finnish, Turkish, Persian, Hindustani, Bengali, and Gurmukhi. How many editions and reprints were issued in England and America I do not know, but I have been assured that the publishers have no reason to complain."

They have not. The work, it may be added, thoroughly brought up to date only two years before the outbreak of the war, will be invaluable to future historians