Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/92

 60 THE EMPEROK NICHOLAS. CHAP. III. Official account of the Czar's malady. This con- sistent with the belief that it was brought about by grief. Sequence of facts. Death of the Czar. beset, might perhaps win a way back to health. Official statements have told us that the Em- peror's malady was ' paralysis ' of a part of his lungs; and, whether so called, with strict accur- acy, or more properly deserving the name of what Science here terms 'Congestion,' this dis- order was certainly one of which the immediate cause may have well been a 'want of heart- ' power.' Now, ' want of heart-power,' we know, is a kind of bodily ailment not unfrequently brought on by grief; and thus, putting all to- gether, we see that the Palace accounts of this illness are consistent, so far as they go, with the commonly accepted belief — the belief that it sprang from a sense of humiliation, entailing bitter anguish of mind. The bare sequence of facts ran thus : — The Czar's troops were repulsed by the Turks on the 17th of February: the cruel wires of the tele- graph soon forced him to know the truth; and he died on the 2d of March. The personal In that pregnant time of a former year when thus brought the question between continued peace and event- ual war still hung in a trembling balance, Lord Stratford one day at Therapia received a com- munication from Dundas which — read as he knew how to read it — imported the ending of doubt — imported the — not yet immediate but — sure approach of war. Then, whilst yet in the presence of one who had come in all haste with a duplicate of the Admiral's words, he fell into