7th April.
Tarr is nothing written in the English language to-day which commands more attention thoo that to which Mark Twain's magic name is appended. For this reason, if for no other, a paper by the popular writer in the new number of the "North American Review" would have been sure of a wide welcome. As it is, the. subject chosen—* The Czar's Soliloquy ""—is, at this juncture, certain to mul iply even Mark Twain's usual multitude of readers.
Taking for his text the following sentence from the London "'limes," correspondence:—" Afver the Czur's moraing bath it is his habit to meditate an hour before dressing himeelf," the great humorist places the Czar's inmost thoughts before naked as they come from that inner consciousness which neither flatters nor deceives.
The physical description of the external Czir as he appears to him-elfin the glass is anything but fluttering. It is summed up in his description of himself as "an imitation X-ray photograph," and the great ruler asks: "Is it this that a hundred and forty million Russians kiss the dust before and worship?"
He finally comes to the sage conclusion that it cannot be himself. Ergo, it must be his clothes that inspire all this reverence and "There is no power without clothes, Strip chiefs to the skin and no State could be governed; naked officials could exercise no authority they would look (and be) like everybody else—commonplace, inconsequential."
Then, after a silence, the imperial meditation turns to the achievements of the imperial family. What are they? "For centuries the swarming Russian millions have meekly allowed our family to. rob them, insult them, trample them under foot, while they lived and suffered and died with no purpose and no function but to make that family comfortable."
Then follows a line of argument which is es cogent as it is bitter. The writer makes the Czar to wonder at the simplicity of the world which prayer and fasting so as to be worthy "applies to Czar and System the same moral axioms that have vogue {on Polish women in Kutno, He is the other depicts military outrages gaze on. his sacred countenance and aecep'ance in civilised countries.
Because, in ci d countries, moved by the contrast, as well he it is wrong to remove oppressors might be. otherwise than by—preciss of, "How shameful dosed how pitilaw, it is held that the same And how grotesque! 'l'o rule applies in Russia, where there thi was J that did those cruel is no such thing as law—except for things, Where is no escaping our family." His Imperial Majesty the personal responsibility—It was is treading on very dangerous ground I that did them." here. It Holy Writ is right and Joel, He wanders on. " With one hand the wife of Bober the Kenite were I flogged unoffending women to rightly applauded for the murder of d-ath and tortured prisoners to ua-Sisera, what would be the verdict of consciousness; and with the other I inspiration upon the murderer of held up the fetish (the ikon) toward Nicholas IT, Czar of all the Ru-sias? my f llew deity in heaven and called His Majesty does not spare himself. down His blessing upon my adoring In the plan English of which animals Is the human race. a Mark Twain is a past master, he says: joke?..... Has it no resp ct fur "We do as we please; we have done itself?. There is but-one reas we plead for centuries. Our storative—Clothes." common trade has been crime; our And he dresses. common pastime murder, our com-We can imagine all this translated. mon beverage blood, the bland of the into the bitterest of Russian condemnation. Upon our heads lie millions nation—-elf-condemnation, bitterest of mu: derers, Yet the pious moralist ofall. But even this can hardly add says it is a crime to assassinate us." to the already full cup of the down-'So the argument runs its course, trodden self. The greatest "effect biting into the mini of the reader as that can follow is that which such only some strong corrosive can. It words will have in the great world comes to a halt for a moment with which owns English ay its mother the word " Patriotism," only to show tongue. What Mark Twain writes that there is no such thing in Russia. to-day will be copied and quoted There will be by-and-by. The maxim everywhere to-morrow, and next that Russians have begun to act upon week will find it absorbed and assimi. will bring forth fruit some day That lated by millions of men who, having this: "Nothing politically no ill-will to the Czar, yet wish well ble was ever yet achieved ex-to the Russian. cept by violence. By-and-by,"eays the results. oe i The nation is in labour; soliloquising Emperor, "there will be
and by-and-by there will be a mighty
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.