exists in one part of Europe to-day, which I believe you could overcome and demolish, if only you could be convinced of it. I wonder, Dan, if you would give the subject any thought if I were to suggest it to you?" 

 "Try," I said. 

 "I wonder if you would seriously consider one of the greatest achievements that remains undone in Europe to-day," he added, meditatively. 

 "The obstacle to which you just now referred?" I asked. 

 "Yes." 

 "What is it?" 

 "Nihilism." 

 "Hell!" I replied with emphasis. 

 But he took me literally, and not even the suggestion of a smile showed in his face as he replied: 

 "That is the fitting word, Dan. It is hell. It is worse than that to hundreds of thousands of human beings, from the lowest mujik of the steppes, to the czar himself. It is a word which carries with it a certain magic which always spells the word death. It is death to those who antagonize it, and it is death to them that uphold it. It is death to the minister, the governor, the official, and it is death to the poor devil who plots in the dark, secretly with his fellows, against the powers that rule him. Nihilism is well named, for it means nothing and it ends in nothing. Nihilo nihil fit! Whoever named the revolutionists of Russia so, builded better than they knew." 

 I was watching Saberevski with some amazement. I had never heard him express himself in such terms before, and I had not supposed him capable, sympathetically, of doing so. I was not without a certain fund of knowledge regarding the subject he had introduced, for my professional duties had taken me more than once into Russia, and I had encountered much of the conditions he described. But I regarded them, as well as Saberevski himself, with the American idea and from an American standpoint. It had always seemed to me so unnecessary that conditions should exist as I had heard them described over there. I had always believed that if the government of Russia would only go about the work differently, it would be so easy to eradicate every phase of the so-called nihilism, and especially that branch of it practiced by those who are called extremists. Evidently Saberevski entertained something of this view himself, although from the standpoint of a Russian, for he ended a short silence between us by 

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