nothing but the child of an emperor or of
a king will satisfy the pride of Czar Alexander.

But emperors are not to be found, like huckleberries, in the woods, and
those among them that have lots and lots of children can't always find
mates ready cut-out and made-up for all of them in the very uppermost
crust of all the world.

When emperors are scarce, and imperial children plentiful, is it strange
that some of them should be sent to a free country, where the highest
royalty in all the world is to be found waiting for orders.

Republics have but one kingly order, that of individual genius, which
ranks above kings all over the world, and is aspired to by queens,
whenever a queen is gifted with superior ambition, as little Victoria
Guelph was when she wrote her book of travels, and the life of her
first-class husband.

That which a queen hankers after, the son of an emperor may be glad to
mate himself with. Is it wonderful, then, that a Grand Duke of all the
Russias should aspire to the first feminine genius of a free land, and
to a certain modest extent receive encouragement from her?

A union between an archduke and the first lady writer of this
country--excuse me, but truth is stranger than fiction--was a
consummation that you as a Society ought to expect, and this nation, in
its administrative capacity, ought to have insisted upon. If an aspiring
and unprotected female cannot receive the support of her own Government,
where can she go for it.

Sisters, this union between Sprucehill and Russia is a great national
question, which ought to have agitated this country from the shores of
the two oceans, the Mississippi and Rocky Mountains inclusive.

There has been considerable of an internal rumbling sort of a
convulsion, earthquaky and threatening, in various sections, which ought
to have given timely warning of what the true national feeling was; but
somehow Russia don't seem to understand it, and I'm beginning to think
that there is secret treason here at home--deep, double-dyed treason--of
which your missionary is the object.

It is a shameful fact that the Government has taken no sort of interest
in an engagement which would have linked the two great social centres of
Russia and Sprucehill in a close and loving union.

From the day my Alexis had an interview with President Grant my
heart-history has been allowed to drag like a lazy funeral train.
Before, all was bright and luminous, with beautiful aspiratio