Trained Observers of Men Describe the Impressions Made Upon Them by the
Ruler of the Russian People, But No Two Agree in Their
Estimates of the Man Behind the Mask.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
In the present crisis in Russia the actual character of the Czar is a
matter of unusual interest to the world at large, since he is one of the
factors to be considered in predicting the outcome of the most tremendous
social and political upheaval of the time.
It is difficult enough for the person whose acquaintance with the rulers
of the earth is through the public prints to obtain an idea of the
individuality of any one of the reigning monarchs, though we appraise many
of them with confidence--if not with accuracy.
For instance, the popular conception of Edward of England is that of an
affable gentleman, with a fondness for pageantry and show, and tastes that
lead him to the race-track rather than to the library. Most of us believe
William of Germany to be a cocky little chap, of tireless energy, who
makes all knowledge his province in the intervals of being photographed
and changing his uniforms, and who pays personal attention to the
fireworks that invariably illumine his progress.
We consider Oscar of Sweden to be a man of scholarly tastes, who would
rather write books than rule, and too modern in his ideas to make a regal
figure on the throne. We think of the aged Emperor of Austria as a
pathetic figure, a man of naturally kindly disposition, after a long life
into which has entered almost every element of tragedy and unhappiness,
ending his career an object of obloquy to many of his subjects.
A pathetic figure also, to our minds, is young Alfonso of Spain, upon
whom are visited the sins of his fathers, who was born literally in a
cabinet meeting, and in all the twenty years of his life has scarcely been
out of sight of his mother or one of his guardians, and who begged in vain
for only one day to himself, incognito, during his recent visit to Paris,
as the greatest possible boon.
We know of the personal attributes of several other monarchs--that Carlos
of Portugal is as likely as any of his contemporaries to meet the fate of
Henry I of England; that Leopold of the Belgians is not to be mentioned in
polite society; that Victor Emmanuel of Italy is a serious young man who
believes that his first duty is to his country instead of to himself.
Mystery Enshrouds Czar and Sultan.
With the foregoing sovereigns we find evidence as to their habits and
disposition in the same direction. Of the Czar, however, as of Abdul Hamid
of Turkey--who is described by one set of biographers as a high-minded and
scholarly recluse, and by others as a sodden and fear-shaken
sensualist--we have two pictures at variance with each other in almost
every particular. It may prove interesting, therefore, under existing
conditions, to compare some recorded impressions of Nicholas II, as made
by him upon various persons who have been brought into contact with him.
In the _World of To-Day_, for January, William T. Stead, editor of the
_Review of Reviews_, of London, one of the ablest and best-known
journalists of his time, and who recently had a personal interview with
the Czar, writes of him thus:
The question as to his intelligent grasp of the facts of the
situation with which he has to deal is one upon which those
who are admitted to the intimacy of his councils can speak
with authority. It is one, however, upon which those who
have never heard him speak are often the most confident.
I can speak with some assurance on this matter, although it
is one on which it ought not to be necessary to speak at
all. But I have seen many men, crowned and uncrowned, in the
course of a tolerably long and varied journalistic career. I
have had four opportunities of talking with Nicholas II.
Altogether I have spent many hours alone with him. Our
conversation never flagged. It did not turn upon the
weather, but upon serious topics both at home and abroad, in
which I was intimately concerned and intensely interested.
Hence I have at least had ample materials for forming
judgment, and few people have had more of the experience of
contemporaries necessary to compare my impressions. I have
no hesitation in saying that I have seldom in the course of
thirty years met any man so quick in the uptake, so bright
in his mental perception, so sympathetic in his
understanding, or one possessing a wider range of
intellectual interest.
Neither have I ever met any one man or woman who impressed
me more with the crystalline sincerity of his soul. Of his
personal charm, of his quick sense of humor, of the genial
sense of good-fellowship by which he puts you at once at
your ease, I do not need to speak.
A Former Instructor's Impression.
Mr. Stead's view partly corroborates that of a fellow-journalist, Brayley
Hodgetts, who, in England, is considered an authority on Russian affairs,
having received his earlier education in that country and lived there many
years. Mr. Hodgetts wrote of the Czar in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, just
before the war with Japan, as follows:
A very great friend of mine was one of his instructors, and
when discussing in moments of confidence the character of
his imperial pupil I never once heard him speak of him
otherwise than in the language of sincere affection. He
always used in referring to him the Russian expression
_oomnitza_, meaning that he was wise and diligent.
It seems that he always showed great application, and also
an imperial aptitude for acquiring knowledge; but, above all
things, what struck my friend most was his high and noble
sense of duty. "I have seen this young man, with his
pathetically earnest face, grow up." he said. "When the time
was ripe he was made a member of the Imperial Council, a
sort of bureaucratic parliament in which the ministers of
the empire and the various higher officials and privy
councilors debate the measures which it is proposed to
introduce. In this assembly the young heir apparent early
manifested a quiet tact and wisdom which showed him to be a
born ruler of men."
"Nothing Disconcerts Him."
Dr. Dillon, the St. Petersburg correspondent of the London _Daily
Telegraph_, who visited the United States last summer to report the
proceedings of the Portsmouth peace conference, telegraphed to his paper
immediately after "Bloody Sunday" in January of last year:
If the emperor has changed his place of residence several
times of late, he acted solely out of consideration for
others, not from any sense of personal insecurity. It is
only fair to him to say that he is absolutely calm and
unmoved as he was after the intelligence had arrived that
ninety thousand men had been wounded or killed on the Sha
River.
Nothing disconcerts his majesty. A person who has spoken
with him several times during the eventful days of this week
assures me that he was less concerned, less preoccupied, on
Sunday and Monday than was General Grant or Von Moltke
before one of their critical engagements.
Just before signing to-day's ukase abolishing civil powers
and administration and appointing Trepoff governor-general,
his majesty was whistling a lively air in his apartments in
the palace.
As Seen by Two American Business Men.
One of New York's foremost men of affairs, Charles R. Flint, who visited
Russia last spring with a view to making an inquiry into the industrial
possibilities of the country, was thus quoted in the _Herald_ on his
return in June last:
The emperor impressed me as a man of extraordinarily quick
perception and of broad intelligence. His memory also is
marvelous, which I believe is a characteristic of the
Romanoffs. It was just after it had become generally known
in St. Petersburg that the Czar had taken an unalterable
stand on the question of indemnity, and while the issue of
peace or the continuation of the war was hanging in the
balance, that I was accorded an interview with him. I may
say that his imperial poise, his kinglike dignity, in this
tremendous crisis in the affairs of his empire, was what
impressed me most.
Lewis Nixon, who has recently been in Russia constructing torpedo-boats,
and who talked with the Czar at Tsar-koye-Selo so short a time ago as last
December, says of him, according to the _Sun_:
His majesty, contrary to reports, was in perfect health, and
had not broken down at all under the strain of recent events
in Russia. There is not a gray hair in his head.
Asked by the reporter: "Did the Czar impress you as a man of great
strength of character?" Mr. Nixon replied:
Well, a man of his rank and power naturally creates a great
impression on one. The Czar is a man of remarkable
intelligence.
Andrew D. White's Somber Picture.
Not every one who has been brought into personal contact with the Czar
names him but to praise, however. In an article that appeared in the
_Century Magazine_ just after the beginning of the war with Japan, Andrew
D. White, who as minister to Russia during Harrison's administration saw
something of the Czar before he succeeded to the throne; says of him:
I was told by a person who had known him intimately from his
childhood that, though courteous, his main characteristic
was an absolute indifference to all persons and things about
him, and that he never showed any application to business or
a spark of ambition of any sort. This was confirmed by what
I afterward saw of him at court.
He seemed to stand about listlessly, speaking in a
good-natured way to this or that person when it was easier
than not to do so, but, on the whole, indifferent to all
that went on about him. After his ascension to the throne,
one of the ablest judges in Europe, who had every
opportunity to observe him closely, said to me:
"He knows nothing of his empire or of his people; he never
goes out of his house if he can help it."
Referring to the denationalization of Finland, in the same article Mr.
White says:
It is the saddest spectacle of our time. Former emperors,
however much they have wished to do so, have not dared break
their oaths to Finland, but the present weakling sovereign,
in his indifference, carelessness, and absolute unfitness to
rule, has allowed the dominant reactionary clique about him
to accomplish its own good pleasure.
Scathing Censure From Tolstoy.
Nor is Mr. White alone in expressing an uncomplimentary opinion of the
Czar. In an article published in the _Free Age Press_, of England, last
August, Count Tolstoy, in acquitting his emperor of the charge of bringing
about the war, declares:
About Nicholas II, I do know that he is a most commonplace
man, standing lower than the average level, coarsely
superstitious and unenlightened, and therefore who could not
in himself possibly be the cause of those events, enormous
in their scope and consequence, which are now taking place
in the Far East. Can it be possible that the activity of
millions of men should be directed against their will and
interest merely because this is desired by a man in every
respect standing lower than the intellectual and moral level
of all those who are perishing as it seems by his will?
Two other Russians, both anonymous--Tolstoy being the only man in Russia
who dares openly speak his mind about the throne and its occupant--but
whose standing is guaranteed by the publications in which their articles
appear, have written of their hereditary ruler in much the same strain.
The first of these articles was published in the London _Quarterly Review_
after the beginning of the war, the author, according to the editor of the
review, being "a Russian official of high rank." This writer devotes
several pages to a bitter denunciation of the Czar and his entourage. Of
Nicholas he says:
Unsteady and Self-Complacent.
Unsteady, half-hearted, self-complacent and fickle, he
changes his favorites with his fitful moods, allowing a band
of casual, obscure, and dangerous men to usurp the functions
of his responsible ministers, whose recommendations are
ignored, whose warnings are disregarded, and whose measures
for the defense of the state are not only baffled but
resented as symptoms of disobedience.
The other anonymous article appeared in the _National Review_, of London,
last May. The author of it says:
The leader of the nation during this terrible crisis is a
sickly youth of arrested development and morbid will, whose
inability to govern might pass unnoticed if he would but
allow any man of intellect or will-power to grapple with the
warring elements. This, however, he refuses to permit, while
allotting to obscure soldiers and seaman, tricksters and
money-grabbers, a share of the supreme power, to the
detriment of the nation.
The mental and moral impotency of this well-intentioned
marplot, who cannot be said to have had even experience,
unless ten years of uniform failure could impart it, is one
of the commonplaces of conversation in town and country.
Even the rough and ready drosky drivers say of him that he
has been thrust among rulers like a pestle among spoons.
Yet apprised of his impotence by the "boudoir council," he
wishes to will, and he takes the volition for the deed. No
occurrence, no event makes a lasting impression on his mind.
Abroad, our armies may be scattered, our ships sunk, our
credit ruined; he is serene in spite of all. At home the
whole framework of society may be going to pieces; Nicholas
sits still and fondly annotates state papers, a very
Narcissus of the inkpot.
Only a short time before this article appeared the _Times_ had published
an interview, obtained by its Paris correspondent with "a prominent
European diplomat just arrived from St. Petersburg," who described the
Czar as "a little, commonplace, family man, never happier than when
playing with his children in their nursery, and quite unequal to the task
of government."
The diplomat added that the autocrat of all the Russias was so afraid of
the present Count Witte (who was then plain monsieur) that he trembled
when the minister came into his presence.
In endeavoring to arrive at a conclusion as to the real character of the
Czar from the mass of conflicting evidence cited, it is essential to
consider the relation of the witnesses to the subject of our inquiry, in
order to ascertain if their testimony is likely to be prejudiced,
consciously or otherwise, for or against him.
It should be borne in mind, in the first place, that so effective are the
artificial adjuncts that lend grandeur to the occupant of a throne it
sometimes occurs that a visitor unaccustomed to such environments is
unable to retain the complete use of his ordinary faculties.
The Majesty That Hedges a King.
That is to say that it is often difficult for one who has hitherto pursued
the commonplace routine of life, on accomplishing the protracted and
arduous negotiations essential to obtain access to a palace, then being
introduced with pomp and ceremony into the royal precincts and attended
through one stately apartment after another by court functionaries,
themselves of high rank and distinguished name, to realize, on being
reverently ushered into the kingly presence, that he is face to face with
a mere human like himself--nay, that in nine cases out of ten he is the
superior of the royal personage in all that constitutes real worth.
It may be remembered that the arrogant Samuel Johnson, in the presence of
George III, his inferior in everything that was not superficial, was
properly subdued; and that, according to Boswell, the incident of his
visit to royalty was one that he "loved to relate with all its
circumstances when requested by his friends."
Human vanity also may be considered as a factor in the value of the
testimony of him who comes forth from the seats of the mighty to relate
his experiences. Does he not speak ill of the great one who has given him
an audience, the listener's inference is that the visitor has found
something in the manner of his treatment to resent; whereas he who sounds
the monarch's praises is put down as having met with a cordial reception.
None of these generalizations necessarily apply to the gentlemen whose
views concerning Nicholas II have been quoted, however.
William T. Stead's Opportunities.
At fifty-five years of age, and in spite of many bitter experiences, Mr.
Stead is still a man of many enthusiasms. He has always had the courage of
his convictions, and has known what it is to suffer for them. He has
probably never, in the course of a long and honorable journalistic
career, sought the popular side of a controversy; indeed, during the Boer
war he was one of a mere handful of Englishmen to stand out against the
entire nation.
As he himself shows, he has had abundant opportunity to form an opinion of
Nicholas, and sufficient experience of men to make that opinion valuable.
It may be recalled, however, that after spending an hour or two with
Richard Croker during a voyage across the Atlantic, when that eminent
politician was at the height of his power, Mr. Stead described the boss of
Tammany Hall as a benefactor of his countrymen.
No one would think of accusing Mr. Stead of wilful misstatement, but it
may be mentioned that, while Mr. Stead informs us that the interview
quoted from is the fourth he has had with the Russian sovereign, it is
probable that if he had ventured to publish anything detrimental about him
in any one of them that one would have been the last. And access to a
reigning monarch is a valuable asset to any journalist.
Mr. Hodgetts is a different type of journalist from Mr. Stead. He is of
the school which, as a matter of public policy, invariably treats with
outward reverence men in high station. More than that, an article like Mr.
Hodgetts's appearing in a journal of the standing of the _Pall Mall
Gazette_ might secure for its author any degree of consideration on the
occasion of a visit to Russia.
Mr. Hodgetts, however, does not pretend to come by his ideas about
Nicholas II at first hand, but gives an instructor of the young emperor as
his authority; and who ever heard of an instructor having opinions other
than complimentary of a royal pupil, even when we get down to the tutors
of the princes of the cannibal islands?
Dr. Dillon's rather involved despatch to the _Daily Telegraph_, quoted
above, bears internal evidence of having been produced under some sort of
pressure. As a matter of fact, it was his first contribution to his paper
after his release from arrest to which he had been subjected by reason of
his association with Maxim Gorky and other liberals with whom the Russian
officials knew him to be in sympathy. If, in the circumstances, Dr.
Dillon allowed his name to be attached to a telegram dictated by Trepoff
he is not to be severely blamed.
Both Mr. Flint and Mr. Nixon take an admiring view of the Czar, and agree
that he is a man of unusual intelligence, the former crediting him with
"imperial poise and kingly dignity." It may be noted, however, that both
of these gentlemen come within the category of witnesses who, Dr. Johnson
believes, may from gratitude exaggerate the praises of kings.
The unnecessary use of the word "imperial" by both Mr. Flint and Mr.
Hodgetts, by the way, seems to be palpable flattery, though either
gentleman may have employed it merely for rhetorical purposes.
Mr. White, in his estimate of the character of Nicholas, seems to have
come very close to the facts. Mr. White is not only an unprejudiced
witness, but a trained observer and thinker. He is an American who has
spent a considerable portion of his life in European courts, and thus has
come out of the ordeal a truer democrat than ever, and he is, above
everything else, a truth-seeker and a truth-speaker.
His testimony is the more valuable in that he violates one of the
unwritten laws that help to make diplomacy ridiculous in these times, in
venturing to make public property of information obtained in a diplomatic
capacity within the awesome precincts of a court.
That Mr. White's picture of Nicholas is true to life is evidenced by the
present plight of Russia, as well as by the fact that the American
diplomat's views are corroborated, not only by the three Russian witnesses
who may be considered as testifying against him, but by Messrs. Flint,
Nixon and Stead, who speak in his favor. Mr. Stead declares that during
his recent interview with the Czar "his spirits were as high, his courage
as calm, and his outlook as cheerful as ever." Only a weakling sovereign,
careless and unfit to rule, could remain serene, indifferent, and
passive--whether his demeanor be characterized as kingly dignity or the
self-complacency of mental and moral impotence--under the conditions that
exist in Russia to-day.