Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/16

 Xli THE YEAR 1S53 AND THE YEAR 1376. mg then almost immediately to separate himself (con- tingently) from the rest of Europe, began preparing for war. Thus the phantom of the young Kireeff with the blood on his snowy-white clothing, gave an impulse which was scarce less romantic and proved even perhaps more powerful than the sentiment for the Holy Shrines ; but the very words I have used to establish the parallel disclose one broad, palpable dif- ference between the Russia of 1853 and the Russia we now have before us. There, within recent years, whether destined to be lasting or not, there has occurred a displacement of political force, involving apparently nothing less than the decomposition of the ancient Czardom, the dispersion of what was once the Czar's power of choosing between peace and war amongst turbulent, warlike committees, the submis- sion of Alexander II. to the Pansclavistic fraternity, and the consequent accession of Russia to the cause of a half-hearted Democracy, which, though patient of despotic power at home, is nevertheless so careful in its attention to the business of others as to be indus- triously aggressive abroad, asserting and exercising the • sacred right of insurrection ' in a foreign state ostensibly treated as ' friendly ; ' nay, able, moreover, when beaten, to turn back upon the once puissant monarch at home, and compel him with all the public resources to come and fight out its battle. Between such a condition of things and the Czardom as it stood in 1853, the contrast of course seems abrupt People