ll the newspapers do say the same thing," said the prince.
"That's true. But so it is the same thing that all the frogs
croak before a storm. One can hear nothing for them."

"Frogs or no frogs, I'm not the editor of a paper and I don't
want to defend them; but I am speaking of the unanimity in the
intellectual world," said Sergey Ivanovitch, addressing his
brother. Levin would have answered, but the old prince
interrupted him.

"Well, about that unanimity, that's another thing, one may say,"
said the prince. "There's my son-in-law, Stepan Arkadyevitch,
you know him. He's got a place now on the committee of a
commission and something or other, I don't remember. Only
there's nothing to do in it--why, Dolly, it's no secret!--and a
salary of eight thousand. You try asking him whether his post is
of use, he'll prove to you that it's most necessary. And he's a
truthful man too, but there's no refusing to believe in the
utility of eight thousand roubles."

"Yes, he asked me to give a message to Darya Alexandrovna about
the post," said Sergey Ivanovitch reluctantly, feeling the
prince's remark to be ill-timed.

"So it is with the unanimity of the press. That's been explained
to me: as soon as there's war their incomes are doubled. How can
they help believing in the destinies of the people and the
Slavonic races...and all that?"

"I don't care for many of the papers, but that's unjust," said
Sergey Ivanovitch.

"I would only make one condition," pursued the old prince.
"Alphonse Karr said a capital thing before the war with Prussia:
'You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who
advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of
advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to
lead them all!'"

"A nice lot the editors would make!" said Katavasov, with a loud
roar, as he pictured the editors he knew in this picked legion.

"But they'd run," said Dolly, "they'd only be in the way."

"Oh, if they ran away, then we'd have grape-shot or Cossacks with
whips behind them," said the prince.

"But that's a joke, and a poor one too, if you'll excuse my
saying so, prince," said Sergey Ivanovitch.

"I don't see that it was a joke, that..." Levin was beginning,
but Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him.

"Every member of society is called upon to do his own special
work," said he. "And men of thought are doing their work when
they express public opinion. And the single-hearted and