X. 



THE DESCENT OF BAD TRAITS AND 



GOOD. 



PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS. 



It is becoming necessar}^ for the whole world to 

 understand Russia. The Bosphorus now flows into 

 the Thames. A few prophets, among whom I do not 

 rank myself, are audacious enough to predict that 

 by and by the Thames will flow into the Bosphorus. 

 Napoleon's famous saying, that the power which 

 governs Constantinople may easily become mistress 

 of Europe and Asia, has behind it, no doubt, a pier- 

 cing military sagacity in the study of strategic geo- 

 graphical lines. The Thames is the water-front of 

 the globe to-day ; but, if a power able to occupy the 

 natural capacities of Constantinople were to possess 

 the Bosphorus, who knows but that, little by little, 

 that stream might become the water-front of Asia 

 and Europe? It has geographical advantages of the 

 most marvellous sort. For one, I believe that the 

 attraction of America will so influence European 

 commerce, that the Tiber of the world, the central 

 stream of the planet, will be the Atlantic, and not 



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