MY DEAR EVAN,--This book, which you expressed a wish I should dedicate to you, consists of short essays and stories dealing entirely with Russian subjects. These essays (which deal with Russia) are in no sense political. I will not go so far as to say they are uninteresting; such modesty is, as Bacon once pointed out, a gross form of boasting; besides which it is a mistake. If one underrates one’s wares one is taken at one’s word. I have found this out to my cost. Once when I was competing in a Civil Service Examination, and appeared as a candidate in the German _viva voce_, the German examiner asked me if I could speak German.…
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