When the imprisoned forces tried to escape at one spot, more force was applied and more bands and more rivets brutally held them down, and were then retained as a necessary part of the whole.
On the surface is absolutism in glittering completeness, and beneath that--chaos.

Lying at the bottom of that chaos is the great mass of Slavonic people undeveloped as children--an embryonic civilization--utterly helpless and utterly miserable.

In the mass lying above that exists the mind of Russia--through which course streams of unduly developed intelligence in fierce revolt against the omnipresence of misery.

And still above that is the shining, enameled surface rivaling that of any other nation in splendor.

The Emperor may say with a semblance of truth _l'etat c'est moi_, but although he may combine in himself all the functions, judicial, legislative, and executive, no channels have been supplied, no finely organized system provided for conveying that triple stream to the extremities.