The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-12-30

oHiclaiuom Win amazing SWiftneSS, and
the celebrity of the universal response must
continue to puzzle the outsider. Doubtless.
were the truth known, his Majesty himself
Is not infrequently bewildered a bit by the
proficiency of his people in hitting upon
h he ~contemplates before his own mind
Is made up TO act.
ESCAPES FROM HIS GUARDS.
Now and then. however. the Emperor
manages to slip away and there is the
deuce to pay at the palace until his exact
whereabouts is ascertained.
One dark and forbidding morning in the
early spring of the year preceding Alex
ander's death. a funeral, which, in its un-
destinations ensemble, was so often seen
in the streets of st. Petersburg. wendell its
slow n solemn way toward the little
Lutheran Church almost within the shadow
of the stately cathedral Of st. Isaac's. The
rain was falling in torrents, the thorough
fare knee deep in snow-slush and mud, yet,
as is the invariable custom in Russia no
matter what the weather and consequent
conditions. the mourners walked bareheaded
Immediately behind the hearse. There were
only W or three but the chief of them, he
who was foremost, by his cyclopean height.
colossal breadth OF shoulders and Triton
stride attracted instant attention from un-
der the umbrellas Of those scurrying to
shelter along the flooded pavements. That
towering barred head with its yellow hair,
and the leonine face full bearded in har-
monizing growth, could belong to but one
man in all the Empire. Gould it be possible?
yet impossible TO be other; it was the Gar,
Alexander III. stalking uncovered through
rain, sleet and slush, chief mourner at the
humble obsequies of his old and long loved
English nurse.
By many it is believed the exposure Of
that day presaged the beginning of the end
which came a year and a half later at
Livadia. Whether so or not, the action in
following the promptings of the heart was
and is as characteristic of the Slav in en-
peror as in peasant. Naturally unaffected.
loving and impulsive, the true Russian is
the more misunderstood that he is the less
conventional; the wider misconceived that
he so often and SO strikingly lacks the
veneer so common to other civilizations.
Nicholas, as has already been said. has
evidenced inheritance of his fathers un-
swerving disposition to peace among the
nations of the earth. He has also as GER
tainly inherited his fathers simplicity of
personal attributes as we'll as his capacity
for loving and his tendency to domesticity.
Sometimes the truth Of the claim advanced
that whichever of the parents has the pro-
%nouncedly stronger influence over the other
is physically demonstrated in the children
would appear to be unequivocally estab-
hshed. Independent of the theory as to
the causes leading to the Romanoffs of the
generation of which the reigning Emperor
is the head being so slight of build and in
physical conformation generally so wholly
unlike their ancestors on the paternal side
the fact remains that in so being they take
after the mother, who is the smallest of
all the family of which the Princess of
Wales and other noted royalties are men,
bers. Nicholas much resembles his
mother in build-although not in face. He
is diminutive for a man, weighing, prob
ably, not more than a hundred and thirty
to forty pounds. In stature ne scarcely
exceeds five feet six. The opposite of his
mother, who is a brunette, he has a COM
plexion as fair as a Saxon school girl. the
absence of coloring, through a want OF
free out-of-door life, giving him a look
Of pallor, which Is not palpable upon clos
er contact. This. together with his bionde
hair and beard, blue eyes and rather under
sized frame. leads to the belief that he
must be delicate in health, when, as a
matter Of fact. there is no reason for it
from his pedigree. His father was a
giant, with Enthusiastically robust lungs. and
a physique. had he been a man given to
muscular training, which would have made
him a veritable Hercules. AS it was, his
rapcf u.S nroJi-iouc The tales told
of his exploits with his hands, in the ex-
hibition Of grasping, clenching and crush
Ing. would fill a goodly sized story book.
Alexander died of Bright's disease, in his
hftieth year, sup~erinduced, it was argued,
by typical imprudence, in that so far as
he was concerned personally, he would do
as he pleased. follow suggested precau-
tions, or not. as he wished and, above all,
was a heavy eater and addicted to bodily
inactivity. He was without inherited or
chronic organic trouble to transmit to
Nicholas.
THE MOTHERS QUALITIES.
The mother. the present dowager En-
press, is, it is true, a small woman, but
at well on to sixty. is, so far at least as
known, in good health. with every indica-
ton Of so continuing. She has always
been an active body, replete with life and
animation. i her time she could out
dance anyone at court. To this form of
pleasure she was greatly devoted, her
vivacity intensifying the contrast with the
habitual restraint as to physical exertion
the husband enforced upon himself. TIL
bitterness Of his youthful exuberance in
humoring the phenomenal strength with
which nature endowed him, appeared to be
ever present, and, practically, from early
manhood he was a self-shorn Sampson.
With a father a marvel, physically, and
a mother Of a long lived family, Nicholas
III should not be the sick man of the north
he has come to be represented. His own
life, in so far as he has had the shaping
Of 1t, has been most exemplary. Aside
from the relations he was said to have sus-
tanned with a danseuse of the royal ballet
prior to his marriage, not a breath of
anything approaching a scandal has been
known against him. The escapades, shady
doings and general inclination to set So
ciety at defiance, which are by some held
to be p~ardonable -indiosyncrasies of heirs to
crowns. Nicholas seems to have had no
penchant for. A quiet, modest and un-
obtrusive man. the Car of Russia, when
with his family, is in the element best
blending with his nature. None of those