Transcriber's note: Italics text is indicated by _underscores_; boldface text is indicated by =equals signs=. The nineteenth century was still very young; its eventful day--that day whose sunset we have yet to see--had but lately dawned upon the world. There were regions, even in Europe, where, for any illumination brought them by the age, the hand of time might have been put back for centuries. In the vast monotonous plain around Moscow the ancient,--Moscow the holy, with her “forty times forty churches,”--Russian serfs tilled the corn-fields of their lords, trembled beneath the knout and the plitt, ate their kasha and drank their kvass, and enjoyed the simple luxuries of their stoves and …
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