Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/18

 XIV THE YEAR 1853 AND THE YEAR 1876. shallow, gypsy-like cunning, but always, always Rus- sian, and always therefore impersonating some more or less weighty component of Russian opinion. Thus the conflict then distracting one man was an epitome of what we now see extended over Russia at large : for, exactly as the present Emperor Alexander made head for some time with noble courage and dignity against the perturbing forces arrayed against him by the Pansclavonic societies, and all the other well- whetted instruments of an aggressive democracy, so also in the brain of the Czar Nicholas — until at last he succumbed to his more violent impulses, and de- scended to meet his fate — there went on an analogous conflict between his own clashing desires — between impulsions that would make him on one day a prudent, austere, righteous monarch ; on the next, a half- fanatic, half-covetous aggressor in arms for the glory of his Church, and intent to win some of the land dividing him from the gates of Constantinople. ' Young Muscovy ' flatters herself that the power she has wrested from her monarch will remain in her 'prentice hands ; but one hardly knows how to believe that a Democracy which shrinks from Home politics can have any very strong roots, and indeed it seems likely that, as soon as there comes back a period of either real peace, or real war, the Czar will regain his ascendant ; for in a period of European tranquillity (unless, indeed, they take heart, and begin to look after their own liberties instead of watching over their neighbours') the agitators of the Pansclavonic