If I indulged in fainting fits I really think that such friendly advice would have made me sink to the floor, but that is not in my line. Still, I protested.
"But, Prince," said I, "you forget that my brother died for the Slavs, that I, in memory of that death, am working for that Cause, that Mr. Gladstone, in his review of my book, Russia and England, distinctly recommended every Englishman to read it, and that he himself wrote a pamphlet on the Bulgarian horrors. Your advice to a Russian, who naturally is a Slav, means—give up your nationality, forget it. No, that I cannot do, for that would be suicide."
I think my vehement indignation amused the old Chancellor, and he said: "Well, well, but do you know that people actually think that you are my agent?"
"It only shows," I said, "how important people's opinions sometimes are. Let them know that I am my own agent and nobody else's." He smiled, I smiled, and we parted—never to meet again.
Of course, we must remember that officials come and go and have to execute orders, which sometimes vary and contradict each other. But you can obstinately, perseveringly, year after year and day after day—work, in accordance with your patriotic duty, only when you are guided by your own deep, independent conviction and ideal!
Why did the Emperor Nicholas save Austria in 1849; alienating himself from the brave Hungarian people, who during a whole century heroically fought to liberate themselves from Austrian despotism?
There is a story about another of our diplomatists, Baron Brunow, which although it has been told before, is so characteristic of Brunow that it will, I think, bear re-telling.
On arriving in London for the first time I was pleased to receive an invitation to the Russian Embassy, because Baron Brunow knew my mother personally, and also because I had heard the following anecdote about him which had greatly amused me: Queen Victoria, deeply grieved by the death of the Duke of Wellington, had expressed her wish that the funeral of the "Iron Duke," as he was called, should be as splendid as possible. The whole of the Corps Diplomatique was requested to attend the ceremony. All the diplomatists unhesitatingly accepted the royal invitation—with one exception, that of the French Ambassador. The latter, in a state of great perplexity and indecision, hurried to the Doyen of "the diplomatic" world, Baron Brunow.