The World Pays Its Tribute. 



485 



All f^eat abuses kindled a volcanic 

 ire in the heart of Mr. Stead, and all 

 ;reat reform schemes electrified him. 

 so sacrifice was too great to suppress 

 he one or to further the other. And 

 ince he set out upon a chivalrous 

 ampaifjn of this kind, he idealised 

 very thing and every person capable 

 if advancing the cause. He showered 

 lown good motives and high praises 

 ip(Mi their actions as from a horn of 

 )lenty ; dwarfs became giants and 

 inners were sainted. In this con- 

 lection, I remember the time when 

 he idea of the Hague Conference 

 k-as first mooted. Mr. Stead was 

 iterally transfigured. His joy knew 

 10 bounds. He caught glimpses of 

 . millennium in the near future. 

 le lauded Russia to the skies for her 

 loble humanitarian enterprise. .Vnd 

 •et, alas I when the truth was 

 :nown and things were reduced to 

 heir real size, a very prosaic picture 

 00k the place of the magnificent 

 )anorama which Mr. Stead had 

 )ainted. I informed him one day that at Ixjttom 

 he starting-point of the Hague Conference move- 

 nent was militarist ; but he called me an icono- 

 iastic pessimist. And yet with the unpromising 

 natcrial which he found at the Hague in the 

 unimer of 1899, Mr. Stead contrived to build up a 

 espectable fabric. He worked as hard as though 

 ic wi-re responsible for the success or failure of the 

 [athering. He was the friend of every man of note 

 here, and the confidential adviser of some. Russians, 

 jermans, Swedes, Americans, all knew and admired 

 >im, although some of them had begun by turning a 

 :old shoulder to " the English dreamer." The fad 

 s, that he always sought, and generally contrived to 

 ind. a use for everything and a role for everybody 

 hat came in his way. He often extracted good from 

 ;vil. In this he resembled Providence, which he was 

 vont to term "' the sleeping partner." 



Whenever -Mr. Stead thought he saw a chance of 

 noving some great reform-lever in Russia, he offered 

 :o repair to St. Petersburg. He always kept in tou( h 

 vith that country. Soon after he had started the 

 Rkvikw iiF Revikws he was commissioned by my 

 rienti Prince TsertelelT to write a monthly letter for 

 :he Rtiss/mye Obozrenie on politics generally. This he 

 lid .satisfactorily for a while, inculcating his own pet 

 ;heories on the Russian public ami illustrating them 

 >y current events. At last he and the editor dilTcred 

 io widcK' on the subjeit of the P'ranco-Russian alliance 

 that tluir connection ceased. 



I)uring the " revolution " of 11)05-6 Stead made 

 liis last great effort. I was there. As usual, he began 

 It the apex of the pyramid. Hut his \isit to the 'I'sar 

 iii<! liiv iiKiK :i. V iif tbi- iiinn.in liii priiK iplr wen- 



In the Editorial Room in the early days of the " Review of Reviews." 



resented by the revolutionists. Nothing daunted, he 

 courageously went about the country preaching 

 patriotic co-operation, and the necessitj' of laying 

 down a foundation before attempting to build up a 

 huge fabric. The difficulties he met with were formid- 

 able, the criticisms which his addresses pro\oked were 

 sharp and often unjust. But none the less, Russians 

 were fa\()urably impressed bv the spectacle of this 

 ap()>tolic reformer come from the distant shores of 

 Britain to preach the gospel of modernism to the 

 Russian iiionsliik. and they shut their eyes to the fact 

 that, dominated by his ethical ideals, he overlooked 

 many of the realities of the Slav world. Some of the 

 men who would have silenced him if .they could, because 

 he was a force in the enemy's camp, assured me that 

 thev were striu'k by his mysterious power of arousing 

 svmpathy and grasping the heart and the conscience 

 of his hearers. 



During the progress of the ''Revolution" he 

 delivered a remarkable speech in Moscow in the 

 house of Prince Dolgorouky, after which he repaired 

 to Saratoff, where Stolypin w.is Governor. His aclivit>- 

 was the object of enthusiastic comment. Menshikot'f, 

 the prince of Russian journalists, devoted an article 

 of two columns to Stead, holding him up as an example 

 to Russian publicists and patriots. The extremists 

 attacked him bitterly for not taking their side in a 

 cause whi( h they maintained he did not understand. 

 Stead- replied in a number of vigorous letters, of which 

 the most idling appean-d in the .%«'() (September lylh) 

 under the heading, " A/>ulni;iii [>ro vita iiicii." 



Legends of all kinds, some of them highly amusing, 

 were >pread about the idiosyncra.sies of the great 

 Kriti>h journalist. 



