greater sorrows of her life; all rills of disappointment and all rivers of grief led down to this great sea of her sorrows.

"You 're the only two 't 's left, you two. Ef you'd just keep out uv bad comp'ny, Tommy. But," she said, recovering herself, "I know you're feelin' awful bad, an' you 're a good boy only you 're so keerless an' ventersome. You did n't mean no harm, an' you won't do it no more, I know you won't."

By this time Mrs. Grayson's trembling hands, on whose hardened palms and slightly distorted fingers one might have read the history of a lifetime of work and hardship, had drawn out a cotton handkerchief in which were tied up thirty great round cumbersome Spanish and Mexican dollars, with some smaller silver. This she took to a table, where she proceeded slowly to count out for Tom the exact amount he had borrowed to redeem his clothes,-not a four-penny bit more did she spare him.

At this point Barbara began to speak. She raised her face from her work and drew her dark eyes to a sharp focus, as she always did when she was much in earnest.

"It don't matter much about us, Tom," she said, despondently. "Women are made to give up for men, I suppose. I've made up my mind a'ready to quit the school over at Timber Creek, though I do hate to."

"Yes," said her mother, " an' it's too bad, fer you did like that new-fangled study of algebray, though I can't see the good of it."

"I don't want to hurt your feelings," Barbara went on, "but maybe it'll do you good, Tom, to remember that I've got to give up the school, and it 's my very last chance, and I've got to spin and knit enough this winter to make up the money you 've thrown away in one night. You would n't make us trouble a-purpose for anything,-I know that. And, any way, we don't care much about ourselves; it don't matter about us. But we do care about you. What 'll happen if you go on in this heels-over-head way? Uncle Tom 'll never stand it, you know, and your only chance 'll be gone. That's what 'll hurt us all 'round to give up all for you, and then you make a mess of it- in spite of all we 've done."

"You're awful hard on me, Barb," said Tom, writhing a little in his chair. "I wish I'd made an end of myself, as I thought of doing, when I was done playing that night."

"There you are again," said Barbara," without ever stopping to think. I suppose you

think it would have made mother and me feel better about it, for you to kill yourself!" "Don't be so cuttin' with your tongue, Barb'ry," said her mother; we can stand it, and poor Tom did n't mean to do it."

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"Pshaw!" said Barbara, giving herself a shake of impatience, "what a baby excuse that is for a grown-up man like Tom! Tom's no fool if he would only think; but he'll certainly spoil everything before he comes to his senses, and then we 'll all be here in the mud together;- the family 'll be disgraced, and there 'll be no chance of Tom's getting on. What makes me mad is that Tom 'll sit there and let you excuse him by saying that he did n't mean any harm, and then he 'll be just as gay as ever by day after to-morrow, and just as ready to run into some new scrape."

"Go on, Barb; that's hitting the sore spot," said Tom, leaning his head on his hand. "Maybe if you knew all I've gone through, you 'd let up a little." Tom thought of telling her of the good resolutions he had made, but he had done that on other occasions like this, and he knew that his resolutions were by this time at a heavy discount in the home market. He would like to have told Barbara how he intended to make it all up to them whenever he should get into a lucrative practice, but he dreaded to expose his cherished dreams to the nipping frost of her deadly common sense.

He looked about for a change of subject. "Where's Bob McCord?" he asked.

"It was a rainy day, and he 's gone off to the grocery, I guess," said Mrs. Grayson. "I'm afeard he won't come home in time to cut us wood to do over Sunday."

Tom had intended to ride back to Moscow and pay his debt this very evening. But here was a chance to show some little gratitude a chance to make a beginning of amendment. He did not want to stay at home, where the faces of his mother and Barbara and the pinching economy of the household arrangements would reproach him, but for this very reason he would remain until the next day; it would be a sort of penance, and any self-imposed suffering was a relief. The main use that men make of penitence and the wearing of sackcloth is to restore the balance of their complacency. Tom announced his intention to see to the Sunday wood himself; putting his uncle's horse in the stable, he went manfully to chopping wood in the rain and attending. to everything else that would serve to make his mother and sister more comfortable.

Edward Eggleston.

VOL. XXXV.-7.

A

MONG the first questions which arise in the mind of any dispassionate student of contemporary Russian history when he reviews the events of the last twenty years are the following: "What is the real nature and significance of the protest against authority which has recently taken so extreme and violent a form in Russia; what are its original causes, and what are the opinions, hopes, and aims of the party or class which manifests such an unconquerable spirit of rebellion and which acts with such fierce and destructive energy? Is the protesting party or class a homogeneous body, all of whose members are inspired by the same ideas, or is there a difference of opinion among its constituent units as to principles and methods of action? Is what the world calls Nihilism' a mere philosophy of negation and destruction, which does not look beyond the overthrow of existing institutions, or has it in view some ideal of social order which it hopes ultimately to realize? If the Nihilists are social reformers sincerely desirous of improving the condition of the people by changing the social and political order of things in the direction of greater freedom, how did it happen that they began their protest at the very time when such changes were being made with great rapidity, and why did they fiercely and vindictively pursue and finally murder Alexander II., the man who was granting, as fast as it seemed prudent or practicable to grant, the very reforms which they themselves demanded? In short, what do the phenomena of contemporary Russian history mean ?"

These questions must be answered before any intelligent idea can be formed of the existing situation in Russia, and before any prediction can be made as to the probable outcome of the struggle which is there going on. It has been my fortune, in the course of the last two years, to make the intimate personal acquaintance of more than five hundred members of this Russian protesting party, including not less than three hundred of the so-called "Nihilists" living in exile at the convict mines and in the penal settlements of Siberia. I can perhaps throw some light, therefore, upon the problems presented by recent Russian history, and answer some of the questions which necessarily suggest themselves to the attentive student of Russian affairs. The subject, however, is one of great extent and complexity, and it is not my purpose in the present paper to even make an attempt to deal with it

as a whole. I desire merely to correct some widely prevalent errors and then to present one phase of the Russian protest against authority; namely, the peaceful legal argumentative phase which preceded the appeal to force and out of which ultimately the appeal to force came, as the necessary and inevitable result of the failure of the peaceful protest.

There is a widely prevalent impression in America that the protesting party or class in Russia is essentially homogeneous; that its members are all "Nihilists"; that they prefer violence to any other means of redressing wrongs; that they aim simply at the destruction of existing institutions, and that there is in this so-called "Nihilistic" form of protest against authority something peculiar and mysterious-something which the Occidental mind cannot fully comprehend, owing to its ignorance of the Russian character. This impression, as I hope to show, is almost wholly an erroneous one. In the first place, the protesting party in Russia is not, in any sense of the word, homogeneous. Its members belong to all ranks, classes, and conditions of the Russian people; they hold all sorts of opinions with regard to social and political organization, and the methods by which they propose to improve the existing condition of things extend through all possible gradations-from peaceful remonstrance, in the form of collective petition, to

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terroristic" activity, in the shape of bombthrowing and assassination. The one common bond which unites them is the feeling which they all have that the existing state of affairs has become insupportable and must be changed.

In the second place, there is no protesting party in Russia to which the term "Nihilistic " can be properly applied. This may, perhaps, seem like a paradoxical statement in view of the fact that we have never heard of any other protesting party in Russia; but it is a true statement, nevertheless. There is no party in the empire which deliberately chooses violence and bloodshed as the best possible means of attaining its ends; there is no party which aims merely at the overthrow of existing institutions, and there is no party which preaches or practices a philosophy of negation and destruction. I make these assertions confidently, because my acquaintance with so-called "Nihilists" is probably more extensive and thorough than that of any other foreigner, and I have discussed these questions with them for many hundreds of hours. Liberals, reformers, socialistic theorists, revolutionists, and "ter

rorists" I have met in all varieties, both in European Russia and among the exiles in Siberia; but a Nihilist in the proper or even in the popular signification of that word never. Of course, if you use the term "Nihilist," as you would use the term "Know nothing," merely to denote a certain social or political party and without reference to the original significance of the appellation, you may apply it to any body of men-to the Knights of Labor, for example; but if you use the word with a consciousness of its primary signification, as you would use the word yellow to describe an orange, you cannot properly apply it to any branch of the protesting party in Russia. There is in the empire no party, organization, or body of men to which it is applicable.

The word "Nihilist" was introduced in Russia by Turgenef, who used it in his novel "Fathers and Children" to describe a certain type of character which had then recently made its appearance in the ranks of the rising generation and which he contrasted sharply and effectively with the prevailing types in the generation which was passing from the stage. As applied to Bazaroff, the skeptical, materialistic, iconoclastic surgeon's son in Turgenef's novel, the word "Nihilist" had a natural appropriateness which the Russian public at once recognized. There were differences of opinion as to the question whether any such class as that represented by Bazaroff really existed, but there was no difference of opinion with regard to the appropriateness of the term as applied to that particular character. It was accurately descriptive of the type. The word "Nihilist," however, was soon caught up by the conservatives and by the Government, and was applied indiscriminately by them as an opprobrious and discrediting nickname to all persons who were not satisfied with the existing order of things and who sought, by any active method whatever, to bring about changes in Russian social and political organization. To many of the reformers, iconoclasts, and extreme theorists of that time the term "Nihilist" was perhaps fairly applicable as it certainly was, for example, to Bakunin and his followers and by some of them it was even accepted in a spirit of pride and defiance as an appellation which, although a nickname, expressed concisely their opposition to all forms of authority based on force. To the great mass of the Russian malcontents, however, it had then,

It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to say that this is not a vague, general assertion, made at random. I have particularly in mind the case of a well-known professor of the Moscow University whose name I will not give, because he is not yet in exile; the case of Constantine M. Staniukovitch, formerly editor of the Russian magazine Diello," who is now in exile in the town of

and has now, no appropriate reference whatever. It would be quite as fair and quite as reasonable to say that the people in the United States who were once called "Know-nothings" were persons who really did not know anything as to say that the people in Russia who are now called "Nihilists " are persons who really do not believe in anything, nor respect anything, nor do anything except destroy. By persistent iteration and reiteration, however, the Russian Government and the Russian conservative class have succeeded in making the world accept this opprobrious nickname as really descriptive of the character and opinions of all their opponents, from the "terrorist” who throws an explosive bomb under the carriage of the Tsar, down to the peaceful and law-abiding member of a provincial assembly who respectfully asks leave to petition the Crown for the redress of grievances. It would be hard to find another instance in history where an incongruous and inappropriate appellation has thus been fastened upon a heterogeneous mass of people to whose beliefs and actions it has no sort of applicability, or a case in which an opprobrious nickname has had so confusing and so misleading an influence upon public opinion throughout the world.

The peoplemost misrepresented and wronged by this nickname are unquestionably the Russian liberals- the members of the protesting party who seek to obtain reforms by peaceable and legal methods. From the point of view of the Government there might perhaps be some propriety in the application of the term "Nihilist" to a conspirator like Nechaief or to a regicide like Ryssakoff; but there can be no possible reason or excuse for calling by that name a professor who opposes the inquisitorial provisions of the new university laws, an editor who disputes the right of the Government to banish a man to Siberia without trial, or a member of a provincial assembly who persuades his fellow-delegates to join in a petition to the Crown asking for a constitution. These people are not "Nihilists," they are not even revolutionists; they are peaceable, law-abiding citizens, who are striving by reasonable methods to secure a better form of government; and yet these men are removed from their official places, silenced by ministerial prohibition, arrested without adequate cause, exiled without a judicial hearing, and finally misrepresented to the world as "Nihilists" and enemies of all social order.* Tomsk, Western Siberia; and the case of Ivan I. Petrunkevitch, formerly a justice of the peace and a member of the provincial assembly of Chernigof, who is now in exile in one of the northern provinces of European Russia. They are all moderate liberals, and they have all been punished without a trial or even a hearing.

cities, into factories, into workshops, into all places where the peasants toiled and suffered, and sought, by sympathy, by cooperation, and by personal instruction, to help and elevate the men and women whom their fathers had bought, sold, and flogged. Hundreds of cultivated and refined young women, with that singular capacity for self-sacrifice which is inherent in the Russian character, abandoned their homes and families, put on coarse peasant dress, went into the remotest, loneliest, and dreariest villages of the empire, and, in the capacity of school-teachers, midwives, or nurses, shared the hard, prosaic life of the common people, labored with them, suffered with them, and bore their burdens, merely in order to learn how they could best be helped. Sophia Perofskaya, one of the five regicides who were hanged at St. Petersburg in 1881, began her career with this sort of missionary work; Vera Phillipova, who planned the assassination of General Strelnikof and who died of prison consumption in the fortress of Schlusselburg last year, was another of the heroic young women who thus went "to the people"; Madame Kavalefskaya, who is now serving out a hard-labor sentence in Eastern Siberia, was a teacher in a peasant school; Anna Pavlovna Korba, who is dying by inches at the convict mines of Kara, was a Red Cross nurse, and treasurer of a local benevolent society, before she became a member of the dreaded "Nihilist" Executive Committee; and hundreds of other young women threw themselves with passionate self-abnegation and self-devotion into the work of educating, elevating, and helping the lower classes.

Something analogous to this took place in our own country soon after the close of the civil war, when educated and refined young women from the New England States went south to teach in negro schools; but the movement in the United States never became epidemic, as it did in Russia, nor was it ever characterized by the reckless, heroic self-sacrifice which illumines so many dark pages of Russian history.

Of course the "Circles for Self-Instruction" and the unprecedented movement of the youth of Russia "to the people" did not escape the vigilant attention of the Government. Both were regarded, and perhaps with good reason, as seditious in their character, and steps were at once taken to put a stop to what was believed to be nothing more than a secret revolutionary propaganda. The "Circles for SelfInstruction" were broken up; all persons suspected of disloyalty were put under strict police supervision or banished to distant provinces; educated young men and women found in peasant villages were required to satisfac

torily explain their presence there; the more active opponents of the Government were exiled to Siberia by "administrative process," and arrests were made by the hundred in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, and all the large towns of the empire. The feeling of exasperation meanwhile grew more and more intense, and the revolutionary movement more and more formidable, notwithstanding the increasing severity of the Government's repressive measures, until at last the prisons were literally crammed with political offenders, most of them young people from the educated classes. The cruel treatment of these prisoners and of the exiles in Siberia, who were regarded by their fellow-revolutionists as martyrs in the cause of freedom, finally provoked reprisals, and in 1878 General Mezzentsef, the Chief of Gendarmes, was assassinated in the street in St. Petersburg, and General Trepoff, the Chief of Police of that city, was shot by Vera Zassulitch, for ordering the flogging of a political prisoner named Bogoeuboff.

During all this time the Russian liberals, as distinguished from the revolutionists, had been endeavoring to discourage the resort to violence on the one side, and to secure justice, consistency, and adherence to law on the other. Their efforts, however, were not successful in either direction. The revolutionists believed that the time for peaceful remonstrance had passed, and regarded further discussion as useless, while the Government resented the intermediation of the liberals as an impertinence, if not a manifestation of sympathy with the declared enemies of the State.

Such was the situation of affairs in 1878 and 1879, when the first political assassinations announced the adoption by the revolutionary party of the policy of " terror." The liberals, foreseeing that this policy would almost certainly lead sooner or later to the assassination of the Tsar, and believing that the reaction which must follow such a crime would be disastrous, if not fatal, to the cause of liberty, determined to make another effort to obtain from the Government some recognition of the evils and wrongs against which the revolutionists were so fiercely protesting, and some promise of a return to the liberal programme outlined in the reform measures of 1861-1866. In order, however, to make this attempt with any prospect of success, it was manifestly necessary to secure a temporary suspension, at least, of the destructive activity of the extreme revolutionary party. Nothing could be accomplished by peaceful methods if the "terrorists" continued to alarm and exasperate the Government with threats and deeds of murderous violence. In the early part of 1879, therefore, some of the prominent liberals of Chernigof