Haverfordwest and Milford Haven Telegraph and General Weekly Reporter for the Counties of Pembroke Cardigan Carmarthen Glamorgan and the Rest of South Wales

I CONCERNING A RUSSIAN STUDENT. Some years ago I became acquainted with a Russian girl, who was attemiiug a course of lectures that I happened to be giving in a certain town. There is always sometbiDg fascinating about the way in which foreign students alight like birds upon our shores, and after picking up the language, fly back home again. My young friend was such a bird of passage, although she had seen no more than eighteen summers, and seemed rather. young for so long a flight. Sometimes, when I wonder where she is now and wiiat part she is playing in her country's struggle for freedom, I picture her as she used to sit, a somewhat lonely and solitary figure, with her hat off, her notebook I and pencil in hand, and her eyes raised in serious expectancy, as if the fate of empires depended upon the words she was about to hear. From our first meeting I was struck not only with the sim- I plicity of her character and the sincerity of her purpose, but also with the quality and the variety of her experienr ■ Siie truA-S^1 much. Her imagination hau oecu enriched awi her thoughts inspired by the treasures in painting and sculpture of the art galieries of Europe her musical taste had been refined by grand opera in Berlin, Dresden, Paris and other notable centres; and she had learnt to speak strange tongues with that conti- nental facility which has become proverbial. Indeed, when I remember that her copy of Shake- speare was in German, that her marginal notes were scribbled in French, and that while I was talking in English, she was probably thinking in Russian, the cosmopoiitan character of her educa- tion assumes a breadth and a significance not wholly acceptable to our confidence in British insularity. Nevertheless, in spite of all the wealth of her experience she was as diffident and as modest as a simple country girl. This was to be expected, for conceit is an ugly weed that grows in minds possessed of insufficient knowledge to know their ignorance, and calls for pity rather than for blame. But this girl had no illusions about herself: she had already realised that in comparison with the baffling mysteries of the uuiverse lnl little specks of knowledge were no more than dancing sun- motes. However, this did not dishearten her. Driven by that strange impulse which impels every student, she was still determined to use every means to scale the heights of knowledge, although she knew too well that each step up the slope made the horizon recede and the goal seem more remote. Therefore, she flung herself heart and soul into the study of English, and in a couple of months was capable of writing wit", a fluency, of which the following lines (which I transcribe as she composed them) are a fair example "Once, in 1905, in the time of revolution, when everything and everybody was on e.,rike, 1 walked along an avenue in Riga. Suddenly, I do not know from which side, cosaks (wild soldiers on horses) came, but they were before me as though fallen from heaven. At that moment I heard from the other side a demonstration of thousands of people singing a revolutionary song. Knowing what would liappeu, I started to run to the nearest house, because there are no houses in that avenue. Just then the cossacks began to shoot at the people, who rose in self-defence, and it became quite a blood-batcle. I did not know what to do. I tried to cross the road to get to a shelter, but a cossack nearly dead fell off his horse before me, and the poor animal dropped too. I jumped over the horse with the hope of escaping, but my foot caught in tho horse's reins, and I fell. Jumping up very quickly I ran into a house, where I remained for about two hours, till it was quiet again, and I walkcu home." Now this account of what she calls "A little adventure is interesting for two reasons. In the first place it is an illustration of her command of the English language after a few months' study and secondly, it raises the curtain for a brief space on one of the scenes in that cruel drama which, during the years prior to the pre::out war, was being suactcd on the ap-. wonder that with such memories aa these this Russian girl moved with a serious air, and had the light of a steadfast purpose in her eyes? After one has come in contact with the raw facts of life, there is no time to trifle with futile shams. Russian literature is animated with the same spirit of intense realism, and it is possible (if we have not already done so) to catch som. e-of its rich glow in the translations of its greatest novels. But these are not books for the lotlis-eaters among readers, who love to see life through the blue haze of a sensuous dream. Written, oue might well say, with pens dipped in blood, they are charged with a mysterious force that challenges the intelligence j and purifies the soul. Take Tul,to) is War and Peace for instance. It is a picture painted on a huge canvas, and depicts Russian society during the great Napoleonic wars. As this tremendous story unfolds itself, we are at first bewildered by an apparent chaos of people, incidents, ocenes and re- flections then, if we persevere, the genius of the author grips us, and we get to know the characters 0,3 if they were members of our own family we recognise faces in the crowd we EeeUa to join the jostling throng, and laugh and cry and gossip with those around us; we watch the scheming and! plotting of kings and erppercrs, princes and peasants: anct when at last we are completely caught in the threads pf the web of a peopie's des- tiny, we feel we are really living a life, and fqrget we arc reading a book. Another masterpiece by the same author is Anna Ivarenina," a work re- markablo if only for its minor characters, butmade immortal by the womanly sweetness of its heroine. It is the tragedy of a woman's love told with a moral intensity that harmonises with tue author's motive. One should also read his liesurrection-" In a sense Tolstoy preached humility, but his humility was of a ratber haughty type. It is in Dostoyevsky, in many respects the autithesis of Tolstoy, that we have the veritable incarnation of gentleness and sweet reasonableness. What a life was bis! On an icy morning in December, 1*19, he with twentyone companions stood on a scauold in their bare shists waiting to be shot. Before the order Fire could be given, an officer galloped, up y/ith a reprieve, but in that awful moment of cgony one of his comrades went mad. Then he served four years as a convict in Siberia 5ent I years more in exile, and after cudles.a tribu, latiop did in ¡fiU and was followed to his grave by ,0,(" of his countrymen, j Whpn Tolstpy heard that he was dead, he said, "Everything that be did was of the kind that the j more he did of it the better I felt it was for man. kind," Is it not worth while reading one of this man's works ? "Crime aud Punishment" has been accessible to English readers for years. It has been ealled Dostoyevsky's "Macbetb," for in it be por- trays theanguish of Raskolnikov, a sensitive Rus- sian student, who in a mad momepti had murdered an old woman. He ha'ds a- spellbound with his analysis o the emotions of a tortured soul, and within the range of literature it is difficult to find anything to equal the tension of some of the scenes, Reference is often made to one incident in the book when Raskolpikov kneels at the feet of the the hapless girl Sonia, and says, I do'not bow to you personally, but to suffering humanity in your person." This, indeed, is the attitude of Dos- toyevsky himseif, the essence of his own sweet nature and gentle altruism, and the same spirit finds radiant expression in a strange and beautiful character in The Idiot." It is interesting to note that the much lamented actor, Lawrence Irving, Droduced a dramatic version of "Crime and Punishment" under the title of The Unwritten Law." I remember travellingla hundred miles to see him and his gifted wife, Miss Mabel Hackney, in their respective parts of Raskolnikov and Sonia. Their performance was an uplifting and memor- able experience. Space permits only a bare reference to Turgenev. His masterpiece is "Fathers and Children," E4 beautiful piece of literary architecture, constructed with a greater symmetry than usually characterises Russian works. It deals with the clash of domestic and political ideals, contains an artistic triumph in a character by name of Bazarov, and grips the reader's attention from beginning to end. Virgin Soil by the same author, although it did not please his Russian admirers, is full of interest- ing features, and presents us with one of Turgenev's finest heroines in the person o{ Mariana. It would be ungallUnt to blame my Russian girl student for this brief digression into Russian literature, but I am sure she would proudly bear the reproach, if she felt that she bad been the means of making,.any who were strangers to her country's writers pay three of them the tribute of a little study. Great literature is not foreign. Listen to one sentence of Turgeney describing the aged father and mother at young Bazarov's tomb: Supporting one another, they move to it with heavy steps they go up to the railing, fall down, and remain on their kgees, and long and bitterly they weep and yearn, and intently they gaze at the dumb stone under which their son is lying; they exchange some brief word, wipe away the dust from the stone, set straight a branch of a fir tree, and pray again, and cannot tear themselves from this place, where they seem to be nearer to their"Bon, to their memories of him." This is not foreign. It is the language of the heart. F. J. Al.

The Pope's Peace Manifesto. Among all the comments and criticisms which have been passed on the latest and most startling papal eirenicon none, so far as I am aware, has pointed out that the theory of government adumbrated therein by the Pope is but a pale, reflexion of the far more virile and feasible scheme which in the Middle Ages only just failed of success in the masterful hands of Pope Gregory VII, the redoubtable Hj!debrand. Both schemes assumed as the fundamental principle that should animate all sane, durable government the universal accept- ance of the superiority of moral Jaw to physical force, the negation of tbe creed that Might is Right. Hildebrand's ideal, though it postulated for its complete success the existence of a Catholic Church whose findings were to be binding on the consciences of all civilised nations (and such a theory was never unreservedly accepted even in Hildebrand's time and even in Europe alone) was in a sense the germ or the prototype of all subsequent theories based on the same principle of the inherent superiority of moral law from a political, moral, economic and even religious point of view. What we should call to-day a Comity of Nations or a League to enforce universal peace or an international Court of Arbitration for the settlement of disputes between nations, corresponds roughly, at any rate in its underlying principles, to the instrument of government which Hi!debrand conceived and in part realised. That it ultimately failed was due to more causes than one, but none operated more adversely against its realisation than the loftiness of the ideal which it held up before men's eyes. Perhaps another cause which tended to defeat the smooth working out of the conception was the extreme intensity of racial feeling then prevalent, no doubt fostered by difficulties of intercommunication and lack of educational facilities and the consequent inability to appreciate anything beyond the narrowest national point of view. The Catholic conception of a federation of nations knit together by the recognition of a supreme spiritual Court of Appeal in the person of the Pope was potentially capabie of realisation in an age when all the great nations of Europe were of one religion, and sometimes the "'pope was able to make his will operative against recalcitrant sovereigns and nations, and even when he failed, the failure was generally due to human weakness such as when national feeling proved more powerful than religious sentiments. Even theu spiritual ideal needed at times to be reinforced by physical force as in the case of King John, and herein lay the greatest danger to the Church itself, the danger of secularisation and political pattisanship, and the Papacy too late learned the bitter Jesson tnat it came to be looked upon in the light of a rival power depending for its validity on carnal weapons. It was a sovereign among sovereigns and often had to fight for its hand like any other earthly kingdom, professing less lofty aims. Hence after all it is true that the Roman Church to-day when she has been shorn of all her temporal power wields far more real influence over her children than when she might in the last resort appeal for support to the secular arm. She has found, perhaps against her will, that it is impossible to serve God and Mammon at the same time. Nevertheless the ideal which Hildebrand cherished in a form modified to suit the requirements of a democratic age, is more capable of realisation than ever before. If the Allies succeed in defeating Germany and her associates, and provided they carry out in practice the aims with which they profess to be imbued, the dream of Hildebrand may after all be realised, substituting for the spiritual headship of the Pope a League of Nations pledged to keep in check all inordinate ambitions, personal and national, and sufficiently enlightened to see clearly that what is for the good of all is the best for each and sufficiently strong to insist that in the end its will shall prevail even if it involves the resort to economic boycott or the use of force. A. U. iiutCH., M.A., Risca (Mon.) I

Milford Docks Company. I The following report wiil be submitted to the ordinary half-yearly general meeting of the MiJford Docks dRmpany on Friday next:— The Directors regret that for another half-year they have to submit to the proprietors only provisional accounts, as they have not yet been so fortunate as to secure the special attention cf the Admiralty to a settlement of the Compauy'a claims. It has therefore been impossible to make any payment on account of interest upon the A' debenture stock, and the necessity again arises of proposing an adjournment of the meeting (which. in accordance with the statutory requirement, "baa been called for the 31st instant), with resolutions in similar terms to those adopted by the proprietors in February last. The tonnage of vesaala entering the Docks during the half-ye^r amounted to 440,504 gross and 1S7,296 net 4;; against 463,120 gross and 201,171 net in the corresponding period of 191(,

HAVERFORDWEST INFIRMARY. HOUSE-TO-HOUSE COLLECTION AT ST. BRIDE'S AND MARLOES. A house-to-house collection in the parishes of fcst. Bride's and Marloes, has resulted in the highly satisfactory amount of £30, being added to the funds of this Institution. A list of the collectors and amounts is appended £ s. d. Mrs Scale, Mrtsslowick 12 7 0 Mrs Morgan, The Rectory ti 18 Mies Doris Richards, Winterton 3 7 3 Miss Richards, Fopston 3 16 0 Mr Richard Davies, Marloes 2 10 2 School Children (Marloes) per Mrs Dale 111 Misses Ware and SAluaou, St. Brides 10 0 £30 0 0 L. HOWELL W ALTERSrf Chairman. I

NARBERTH. Sir Charles Philipps, Bart., of Picton Castle, opened an exhibition of garden produce held on Friday at Narberth. A concert followed. The undertaking was organised by the local Eisteddfod Committee on behalf of their Soldiers' and Sailors' Comforts Fund, and the garden produce was given to the Red Cross Hospital at Haverfordwest.

PEMBROKESHIRE KNIGHT COM- MANDER. Mr Cecil Partridge, included in the list of Knight Commanders of the new Order of the British Empire, is the son of Mr R. W. Partridge, of Pen- y-craig, Saundersfoot, aud a grandson of the late Mr William Partridge, J.P., D.L., of Wyelands, Ross, Herefordshire, and for many years a Metro- politan magistrate. 0 ♦

WEDDING CABDS WEDDING CABDS NEW SE- LECTION Jusr pgoicivicD.-For Specimens and prices, apply at the Telegraph Printing Works, Bridge Street, Haverfordwest.

A GOOD STORY FROM "THE SUNDAY AT HOME." Three little boys were playing on the beach. One had piled and patted and cajoled the sand into a resemblance to a racing motor car, another bad constructed with fair success a touring oar. But what the third little fellow had made was without form. "What is your car be was asked. He looked rather uncertain until the questioner continued: Yours looks like two or three together." t;That^s what it is," he said loftily;" mine's a collision! I

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