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.