The engineers of Nicholas I showed him their map of a crooked
railway line from St. Petersburg to Moscow, explaining that it
curved this way and that to take in this and that important
interest or city, but the Czar took a ruler and drew a straight
line between his two capitals, saying: “Build me that road.”
The secret of the Czar’s engineering was simply a single
purpose to join the old and new capitals of his empire.
The engineers thought of one great interest this way, and
another that way; but the Czar had no interests but the one.
That may have been poor business, but it was good military
engineering, and had it continued in Russian military autocratic
government, the Japanese, in the late war, would have had harder
work.--FRANKLIN NOBLE, “Sermons in Illustration.”
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=Sisterhood=--See GRACIOUSNESS IN WOMEN.