Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/259

HIS DEFENCE OF SEBASTOPOL. 229 CHAP. VIJI. III. The glory — true glory — attaching to the de- The glory fence of Sebastopol in its early and grandest the early de. period was kept veiled from the Kussians them- bastopoi; selves by, in some things, the misleading utter- ances, in others, the misleading silence, if not in- deed by the ignorance, of their own unfortunate Czar. How this happened, we easily learn. To ap- this kept . , , .. .. veiled from preciate the glory there was in battling with that the kus- dark sea of troubles which confronted Korniloff selves. and Todleben, the first condition of course is to know in a general way what the troubles they faced really were ; and this, as it happened, was knowledge of exactly that kind which a man in the station of Nicholas might very well fail to acquire, or, if acquiring it, choose to withhold from the ears of his people ; for where could the Czar find informants brave enough to acquaint him in full with the reign that sprang up in Sebastopol on the 25th of September, and how could the man tell his people of that collapse of his Government and of his Army which had opened occasion for lawless, volunteered services ? how bring himself to see and acknowledge that the intrepid defence of Sebastopol in its earlier and noblest epoch was achieved, so to speak, by — as though they were dare-devil English, or dare-devil Anglo-Americans — a little common- wealth of brave men, exempt for the time from