150 APPENDIX 



I smiled, and blandly, patiently, as one instructs a 

 child in the rule of three, I said: "In Russia there is 

 no aristocracy.' 



"No aristocracy!' 1 



"No aristocracy,' I repeated, "except, of course, 

 just such an aristocracy as we have in dear old 

 Virginia and Massachusetts and New Rochelle an 

 aristocracy which is made up of certain old and 

 illustrious families who trace their blue blood back 

 through the generations. To be a Dolgoruki or 

 Troubetskoy adds just the same lustre it gives a 

 Yankee to be an Adams or an Endicott: but it lends 

 neither place nor power. It's a mere thing of family 

 pride. ' 



And that is true ; in Russia there is royal blood with 

 its privileges ; but there is no aristocracy. There is, of 

 course, a nobility. But that is an admirable thing 

 and essentially democratic, because it is open to every 

 Russian. 



The son of the peasant or the son of the merchant 

 or any man's son can be a noble if he will. He has 

 but to go through the schools, pass the civil service 

 examination, and then at a given point in his career 

 he is automatically ennobled. The rank goes with 

 the grade he has won in the civil service. So there 

 is a perpetual flow of plain folk up into the class of the 

 nobility; and a return current, of course, gradually 

 carries the descendants of the unfit back into the 

 people. It is a life-giving circulation; and it is demo- 

 cratic. It is democracy in essence reward and dis- 

 tinction for services to the state. 



