Not so.  Alexander now hurled his greatest weapon, and stunned reaction in a moment.  He freed all the serfs on the Imperial estates without reserve.  Now it was seen that he was in earnest; the opponents were disheartened; once more the plan moved and dragged them on.  But there came other things to dishearten the Emperor; and not least of these was the attitude of those who moulded popular thought in England.  Be it said here, to the credit of France, that from her came constant encouragement in the great work.  Wolowski, Mazade, and other true-hearted men sent forth from leading reviews and journals words of sympathy, words of help, words of cheer.

Not so England.  Just as in the French Revolution of 1789, while yet that Revolution was noble and good, while yet Lafayette and Bailly held it, leaders in English thought, who had quickened the opinions which had caused the Revolution, sent malignant prophecies and prompted foul blows, so in this battle of Alexander against a foul wrong they seized this time of all times to show all the wrongs and absurdities of which Russia ever had been or ever might be guilty—­criticised, carped, sent much haughty advice, depressing sympathy, and malignant prophecy.  Review articles, based on no real knowledge of Russia, announced a desire for serf-emancipation, and then, in the modern English way, with plentiful pyrotechnics of antithesis and paradox, threw a gloomy light into the skilfully pictured depths of imperial despotism, official corruption, and national bankruptcy.

They revived Old World objections, which, to one acquainted with the most every-day workings of serfage, were ridiculous.  It was said that if the serfs lost the protection of their owners they might fall a prey to rapacious officials.  As well might it have been argued that a mother should never loose her son from her apron-strings.  It was said that “Serfism excludes pauperism”—­that, if the serf owes work to his owner in the prime of life, the owner owes support to his serf in the decline of life.  No lie could be more absurd to one who had seen Russian life.  We were first greeted, on entering Russia, by a beggar who knelt in the mud; at Kovno eighteen beggars besieged the coach, and Kovno was hardly worse than scores of other towns; within a day’s ride from St. Petersburg a woman begged piteously for means to keep soul and body together, and finished the refutation of that sonorous English theory, for she had been discharged from her master’s service in the metropolis as too feeble, and had been sent back to his domain, afar in the country, on foot and without money.