66 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE XI 



Empire. He said that the pagan tribes of the imperial 

 dominions in Asia seemed more inclined to Mohammedan 

 ism than to Christianity, and gave as the probable reason 

 the fact that the former faith is much the simpler of 

 the two. He was evidently unable to grasp the idea of 

 the Congress of Religions at the Chicago Exposition, and 

 seemed inclined to take a mildly humorous view of it as 

 one of the droll inventions of the time. 



He appeared to hold our nation as a problem apart, 

 and was, perhaps, too civil in his conversations with me 

 to include it in the same condemnation with the nations 

 of Western Europe which had, in his opinion, gone hope 

 lessly wrong. He also seemed drawn to us by his admi 

 ration for Emerson, Hawthorne, and Lowell. When Pro 

 fessor Norton s edition of Lowell s &quot;Letters&quot; came out, 

 I at once took it to him. It evidently gave him great 

 pleasure perhaps because it revealed to him a very dif 

 ferent civilization, life, and personality from anything 

 to which he had been accustomed. Still, America seemed 

 to be to him a sort of dreamland. He constantly returned 

 to Russian affairs as to the great realities of the world. 

 Discussing, as we often did, the condition and future of 

 the wild tribes and nations within the Asiatic limits of 

 the empire, he betrayed no desire either for crusades or 

 for intrigues to convert them; he simply spoke of the 

 legitimate influence of the church in civilizing them. 



I recall a brilliant but denunciatory article, published 

 in one of the English reviews some time since by a well- 

 known nihilist, which contained, in the midst of various 

 charges against the Russian statesman, a description of 

 his smile, which was characterized as forbidding, and 

 even ghastly. I watched for this smile with much interest, 

 but it never came. A smile upon his face I have often 

 seen ; but it was a kindly smile, with no trace of anything 

 ghastly or cruel in it. 



He seemed to take pleasure in the society of his old 

 professorial friends, and one of them he once brought to 

 my table. This was a professor of history, deeply con- 



