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ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

I imagine one might have passed through the sameexperience in the Russia of the Tsars. Americans often praise what they call the “air of liberty” whichthey claim as characteristic of their country. Theypossess it in common with all the English -speakingdominions. The moral atmosphere of Russia is a verydifferent compound of emotional chemistry.

The part of Finland through which our train nowbore us was not different in physical character from thelands across the frontier, but we found ourselves passing“nice little properties” and the signs of comfort andeven prosperity. . . .

The mood of oppression could not be betterconveyed. In part, no doubt, it is the fruit ofRed Revolution—there is much in Russia tomake one pray that one’s own country mayachieve its goal not in that way. In part, per-haps, it is the fruit of some beastliness in theRussian nature—or in the Russian and Jewish natures when, as now, they are allied together.But in part it is one face of the superb earnest-ness of Red Russia , of the high seriousness,which in its other aspect appears as the Spiritof Elation. There never was any one so seriousas the Russian of the Revolution, serious evenin his gaiety and abandon of spirit—so seriousthat sometimes he can forget to-morrow andsometimes he can forget to-day. Often thisseriousness is crude and stupid and boring inthe extreme. The average Communist is dis-coloured just as the Methodists of every agehave been. The tenseness of the atmosphereis more than one is used to support, and a long-ing comes for the frivolous ease of London.