Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/62

 20 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1853 CHAP, some panic, the Turks were not liable to he ______ .speedily crushed by an array forcing the line of the Danube and advancing through the passes of the Balkan. But also, the conquest of European Turkey was obstructed by the very splendour of the prize. To have the dominion of the summer kiosks, and the steep shady gardens looking down on the straits between Europe and Asia, is to have a command which carries with it nothing less than an Empire : and since the strength of every nation is relative, and is liable to be turned to nought by the aggran- disement of another Tower, it was plain that no one among the nations of Europe could be seen going in quest of dominion on the Bosphorus without awakening alarm and resistance on the part of the other great Powers. Certainly the Turks trusted much in Heaven ; but being also highly skilled in so much, of the diplomatic art as was needed for them in this temporal world, they knew how to keep alive the watchfulness of every Power which was resolved to exclude its rivals from the shores of the Bosphorus. Moreover, those descendants of the Ottoman conquerors still remained gifted with the almost inscrutable quali- ties which enable a chosen race to hold dominion over a people more numerous and more clever than their masters. There were a few English statesmen and several English travellers who had come to understand this; but the generality of men in the Christian countries found it hard to make out that a people could be wise without