94 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XII 



more for the advancement of Russian thought by building 

 railways than by entering into any conspiracies whatever. 

 Tolstoi said the advice was good, but that he would also 

 have advised the young man to speak out his ideas, what 

 ever they might be. He said that only in this way could 

 any advance ever be made ; that one main obstacle in hu 

 man progress is the suppression of the real thoughts of 

 men. I answered that all this had a fine sound; that it 

 might do for Count Tolstoi ; but that a young, scholarly 

 engineer following it would soon find himself in a place 

 where he could not promulgate his ideas, guarded by 

 Cossacks in some remote Siberian mine. 



He spoke of young professors in the universities, of 

 their difficulties, and of the risk to their positions if they 

 spoke out at all. I asked him if there was any liberality or 

 breadth of thought in the Russo-Greek Church. He an 

 swered that occasionally a priest had tried to unite 

 broader thought with orthodox dogma, but that every such 

 attempt had proved futile. 



From Parker we passed to Lowell, and I again tried to 

 find if he really knew anything of Lowell s writings. He 

 evidently knew very little, and asked me what Lowell had 

 written. He then said that he had no liking for verse, and 

 he acquiesced in Carlyle s saying that nobody had ever 

 said anything in verse which could not have been better 

 said in prose. 



A day or two later, on another of our walks, I asked 

 him how and when, in his opinion, a decided advance in 

 Russian liberty and civilization would be made. He an 

 swered that he thought it would come soon, and with 

 great power. On my expressing the opinion that such 

 progress would be the result of a long evolutionary pro 

 cess, with a series of actions and reactions, as heretofore 

 in Russian history, he dissented, and said that the change 

 for the better would come soon, suddenly, and with great 

 force. 



As we passed along the streets he was, as during our 

 previous walks, approached by many beggars, to each of 



