he talk was very brilliant. My
brother, who was a charming conversationalist, kept his visitors
fascinated with anecdotes about Carlyle and John Ruskin, whom he knew
well. They spoke, too, about the unsigned articles which they were
each contributing to a paper called the _London_, and their criticism
of each other's work was very lively. But to me the most touching
incident of the afternoon was the story told by one of the
revolutionary party about Sophie Peroffsky, who mounted the scaffold
with four of her friends, kissed and encouraged them with cheering
words until the time came that they should be executed. He related
also a touching and detailed story of little Marie Soubitine, who
refused to purchase her own safety by uttering a word to betray her
friends, and was kept lingering in an underground dungeon for three
years, at the end of which she was sent off to Siberia, and died on
the road. No amount of torture could make her betray her friends. They
spoke of Antonoff, who was subjected to the thumbscrew, had red-hot
wires thrust under his nails, and when his torturers gave him a little
respite he would scratch on his plate cipher signals to his comrades.

The account of the cause and origin of the revolutionary movement and
its subsequent history, which sparkled with heroic deeds, was told in
a quiet, unostentatious manner. I had just come from Russia. I had
been much in that country, and thought I knew a great deal about it
and the sinister system of government that breeds revolutionaries; but
the tales of cruel, senseless despotism told by these people made me
shudder with horror. I had been accustomed to abhor and look upon
Nihilists as a scoundrelly gang of lawless butchers, but I found them
the most cultured of patriots, loving their country, though detesting
the barbarous system of government which had driven them and thousands
of their compatriots from the land and friends they loved, and from
the estates they owned, into resigned and determined agitation for
popular government and the amelioration of their people. The upholders
of this despotic system of government are now engaged in a
life-and-death struggle, and all civilized nations are looking forward
to the time when, for the first time in its history, Right and not
Might shall prevail in Russia. It has been said, "Happy is the nation
that has no history." Russia knows this to her cost, for her history
is being made every day, with all the horrible