Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/313

 FOR THE INVASION. 283 tion, lie came to another determination (a deter- chap. XVII minatiou which is not so mere a corollary from '_ the first as men unversed in business may think): he resolved to carry the enterprise through. He knew that, though work of an accustomed sort can be ably done by official persons acting under a bare sense of duty, yet that the engine for con- quering obstacles of a kind not known beforehand, when they are many and big and unforeseen, must be nothing less than the strong, passionate will of a man. If every one were to perform his mere duty, there would be no invasion of the Crimea, for a rank growth of hindrances, springing up in the way of the undertaking, would be sure to gather fast round it, and bring it in time to a stop. Amongst the English Generals there was no sir Edmund one who had given his mind to the enigma which ^°^ went by the name of the ' Eastern Question ; ' but Eear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons had been for many years engaged in the animating diplomacy of the Levant. In Greece, the activity of the Czar's agents, or, perhaps, of his mere admirers, had been so constant, and had generated so strong a spirit of antagonism in the minds of the few conten- tious Britons who chanced to observe it, that the institutions called 'The Russian Party' and ' The English Party ' had long ago flourished at Athens ; and since Sir Edmund Lyons had been accredited there for several years as British ]Iin- ister, he did not miss being drawn into the game of combating against what was supposed to be the ever-impending danger of Russian encroach-