Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/10

Vi THE YEAR 1853 AND THE YEAR 1876. "1 The Russians are a warm-hearted, enthusiastic people, with an element of poetry in them, which derives perhaps, from the memory of subjection undergone in old times, and the days of the Tartar yoke; for, if Shelley speaks truly — ' Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong, They learn in sorrow what they teach in song.' With but little in their own condition of life that can well provoke envy, the peasants love to believe that there are others more ill-fated than themselves, to whom they owe pity and help, — love to think that the conscript they see torn away from his village is foinf — ffoinff oft' in close custody — to be the liberator of syn-orthodox brethren oppressed by Mahometan tyrants; and being curiously prone to 'fraternity,' they can be honestly, and beyond measure vehement in favour of an idealised cause which demands their active sympathy That the voice of the nation when eagerly expressing these feelings is commonly genuine and spontaneous, there seems no reason to doubt. Far from having been inspired by the rulers, an outburst of the fraternising enthusiasm, which tends towards State quarrels and war, is often unwelcome at first in the precincts of the Government offices ; but it brings, nevertheless, a new force which Policy may afterwards guide, and pervert to worldly uses. This volume shows how a war — in the midst of what seemed trading times — owed its origin to a