progress has been
made in the direction of constitutional freedom since it was granted in
1905. The reconstitution of the Polish nation, the stirring amongst
the Finns, the rising hopes of the Jews, the national aspirations of
Mongolia more and more fully expressed, the general "moving upon the
face of the waters" of the Spirit which makes a free people, cannot but
rivet the attention of those interested in social and national life upon
Russia at this time, when the autocratic government of long standing is
passing, so simply and so naturally, it would seem, into the
constitutional.

Since the emancipation of the serfs there has been a steady growth of
the democratic, almost communal, spirit in all the peasant villages of
Russia, and though their powers have been somewhat curtailed since 1889
they are self-governing and very responsible communities. Some of the
best and most interesting Russian stories, therefore, deal with
incidents and experiences in village life; and it is the great fact that
Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, whose book upon Russia is one of the most
complete character, went and shut himself out from the rest of the world
at the little village of Ivanofka, in the province of Novgorod, and
there drank in the spirit of the language and of the national life, that
makes his compendious work a real classic for those who want truly to
understand Russian life and nationality.

There are two distinct social and constitutional forces at work,
therefore, and not working slowly and deliberately, as so often in the
past, but with great rapidity--the autocratic seeking to realize its
responsibilities and to fulfil them, and the democratic feeling that its
ideals are coming nearer to being realized every day.

There is consequently no country so absorbingly interesting to the
constitutionalist at this time as Russia. Nothing can be more
stimulating, to those who want to read the signs of the times, than to
know that revolutionaries, such as M. Bourtzeff,[1] who had left their
country in despair to plan and plot, have now returned, without
troubling whether they would be pardoned or punished, full of expectant
hope for their country's constitutional future. Perhaps cautious people
will hope that progress may be slow, but the great thing is to be able
to say, "It moves."

Every city and great town in Russia has something specially
characteristic about it, and of course they are, as yet, very few in
number. Catherin