These pages are made up of letters written during a little journey
through Scandinavia and into Russia as far as Moscow, some four years
ago, before the smashing of the Russians by the Japanese. They were
written to my father, and are necessarily intimate letters, in which I
have jotted down what I saw and felt as the moment moved me. The truth
is, I was on my honey-moon trip, and the world sang merrily to
me--even in sombre Russia.
Afterward, some of these letters were published here and there; now
they are put together into this little book. I had my kodak with me
and have thus been able to add to the text some of the scenes my lens
made note of.
It was my endeavor at the time, that the kindly circle who read the
letters should see as I saw, feel as I felt, and apprehend as I
apprehended; that they should share with me the delight of travel
through serene and industrious Denmark, among the grand and stupendous
_fjelds_ and _fjords_ of romantic Norway; should visit with me a
moment the Capital of once militant Sweden, and join me in the
excitement of a plunge into semi-barbarous Russia. The transition from
Scandinavia to Russia was sharp. I went from lands where the modern
spirit finds full expression, as seen in the splendid schools and
libraries of Denmark, in the democratic and Americanized atmosphere of
Norway, in the scientific and mechanical progressiveness of Sweden.
Entering Russia, I found myself amidst social and political
conditions, mediaeval and malevolent. The wanton luxury of the
enormously rich, the pinching poverty of the very poor, the political
and social exaltation of the very few, the ruthless suppression of the
many, here stared me in the face on every hand. The smoldering embers
of discontent, profound discontent, were even then apparent. In the
brief interval which has since elapsed, this smoldering discontent has
become the blazing conflagration of Revolution. Driven against his
will by inexorable fate, the Czar has at first convoked the Imperial
Douma and then, terrified by its growing aggressiveness, has summarily
decreed its death. Panic-struck by the apparition of popular liberty,
which his own act has called forth, he is now in sinister retreat
toward despotic reaction; the consternation of the unwilling
Bureaucracy, day by day increases; terror, abject terror, increasingly
haunts the splendid palaces of the Autocracy; and the inevitable and
irrepressible movement of the Russian people toward liberty and modern
order is begun.
The symptoms of social and political ailment which then discovered
themselves to me are now apparent to all the world. And it is this
verification of the suggestions of these letters which may now,
perhaps, justify their publication.
WILLIAM SEYMOUR EDWARDS.
Charleston-Kanawha, West Virginia,
September 1, 1906.