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.