Opposition met him, of
course; not so much the ponderous laziness of Peter's time as an
opposition, polite and elastic, which never ranted and never stood
up--for then Nicholas would have throttled it and stamped upon it. But
it did its best to entangle his reason and thwart his action. He was
told that the serfs were well-fed, well-housed, well-clothed,
well-provided with religion; were contented, and had no wish to leave
their owners.
Now Nicholas was not strong at spinning sham reasons nor subtle at
weaving false conscience; but, to his mind, the very fact that the
system had so degraded a man that he could laugh and dance and sing,
while other men took his wages, his wife, and homestead, was the
crowning argument against the system. Then the political economists
beset him, proving that without forced labor Russia must sink into sloth
and poverty.
Yet all this could not shut out from Nicholas's sight the great black
fact in the case. He saw, and winced as he saw, that, while other
European nations, even under despots, were comparatively active and
energetic, his own people were sluggish and stagnant; that, although
great thoughts and great acts were towering in the West, there were in
Russia, after all his galvanizing, no great authors, or scholars, or
builders, or inventors, but only two main products of Russian
civilization, dissolute lords and abject serfs.
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