to plague Louis Philippe, he remained proud in his apostolate
of Absolutism.

This pride Nicholas never relaxed. A few days before his self-will
brought him to his death-bed, we saw him ride through the St. Petersburg
streets with no pomp and no attendants, yet in as great pride as ever
Despotism gave a man. At his approach, nobles uncovered and looked
docile, soldiers faced about and became statues, long-bearded peasants
bowed to the ground with the air of men on whose vision a miracle
flashes. For there was one who could make or mar all fortunes,--the
absolute owner of street and houses and passers-by,--one who owned the
patent and dispensed the right to tread that soil, to breathe that air,
to be glorified in that sunlight and amid those snow-crystals. And he
looked it all. Though at that moment his army was entrapped by military
stratagem, and he himself was entrapped by diplomatic stratagem, that
face and form were proud as ever and confident as ever.

There was, in this attitude toward Europe,--in this standing forth
as the representative man of Absolutism, and breasting the nineteenth
century,--something of greatness; but in his attitude toward Russia this
greatness was wretchedly diminished.

For, as Alexander I. was a good man enticed out of goodness by the baits
of Napoleon, Nicholas was a great man scared out of greatness by the
ever-recurring phantom of the French Revolution.

In those first days of his reign, when he enforced loyalty with
grape-shot and halter, Nicholas dared much and stood firm; but his
character soon showed another side.

Fearless as he was before bright bayonets, he was an utter coward before
bright ideas. He laughed at the flash of cannon, but he trembled at the
flash of a new living thought. Whenever, then, he attempted a great
thing for his nation, he was sure to be scared back from its completion
by fear of revolution. And so, to-day, he who looks through Russia for
Nicholas's works finds a number of great things he has done, but each is
single, insulated,--not preceded logically, not followed effectively.

Take, as an example of this, his railway-building.

His own pride and Russian interest demanded railways. He scanned the
world with that keen eye of his,--saw that American energy was the best
supplement to Russian capital; his will darted quickly, struck afar, and
Americans came to build his road from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

Nothing can be more complete. It is an "air