They were too
ignorant to reason, too low down the animal scale to comprehend things
which some of the dumb animals undoubtedly recognize.
Paul Alexis, half Russian, half English, understood these people very
thoroughly. He took advantage of their ignorance, their simplicity,
their unfathomable superstition. He governed as no other could have
ruled them, by fear and kindness at once. He mastered them by his
vitality, the wholesome strength of his nature, his infinite
superiority. He avoided the terrible mistake of the Nihilists by
treating them as children to whom education must be given little by
little instead of throwing down before them a mass of dangerous
knowledge which their minds, unaccustomed to such strong food, are
incapable of digesting.
A British coldness of blood damped as it were the Russian quixotism
which would desire to see result follow upon action--to see the world
make quicker progress than its Creator has decreed. With very
unsatisfactory material Paul was setting in motion a great rock which
will roll down into the ages unconnected with his name, clearing a path
through a very thick forest of ignorance and tyranny.
CHAPTER XI
CATRINA
The man who carries a deceit, however innocent, with him through life is
apt to be somewhat handicapped in that unfair competition.
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