I got from Russia the Journal of the Russian Geographical Society, and soon began to supply the Times also with occasional paragraphs about Russian geographical explorations. Prjeválsky was at that time in Central Asia, and his progress was followed in England with interest.
However, the money I had brought with me was rapidly disappearing, and all my letters to Russia being intercepted, I could not succeed in making my address known to my relatives. So I moved in a few weeks to London, thinking I could find more regular work there. The old refugee, P. L. Lavrov, continued to edit at London his newspaper Forward; but as I hoped soon to return to Russia, and the editorial office of the Russian paper must have been closely watched by spies, I did not go there.
I went, very naturally, to the office of Nature, where I was most cordially received by the subeditor, Mr. J. Scott Keltie. The editor wanted to increase the column of Notes, and found that I wrote them exactly as they were required. A table was consequently assigned me in the office, and scientific reviews in all possible languages were piled upon it. “Come every Monday, Mr. Levashov,” I was told, “look over these reviews, and if there is any article that strikes you as worthy of notice, write a note, or mark the article; we will send it to a specialist.” Mr. Keltie did not know, of course, that I used to rewrite each note three or four times before I dared to submit my English to him; but taking the scientific reviews home, I soon managed very nicely, with my Nature notes and my Times paragraphs, to get a living. I found that the weekly payment, on Thursday, of the paragraph contributors to the Times was an excellent institution. To be sure, there were weeks when there was no interesting news from Prjeválsky, and news from other parts of Russia was not found interesting; in such cases my fare was bread and tea only.
One day, however, Mr. Keltie took from the shelves several Russian books, asking me to review them for Nature. I looked at the books, and, to my embarrassment, saw that they were my own works on the Glacial Period and the Orography of Asia. My brother had not failed to send them to our favorite Nature. I was in great perplexity, and, putting the books into my bag, took them home, to reflect upon the matter. “What shall I do with them?” I asked myself. “I cannot praise them, because they are mine; and I cannot be too sharp on the author, as I hold the views expressed in them.” I decided to take them back next day, and explain to Mr. Keltie that, although I had introduced myself under the name of Levashov, I was the author of these books, and could not review them.
Mr. Keltie knew from the papers about Kropotkin’s escape, and was very much pleased to discover the refugee safe in England. As to my scruples, he remarked wisely that I need neither scold nor praise the author, but could simply tell the readers what the books were about. From that day a friendship, which still continues, grew up between us.
In November or December, 1876, seeing in the letter-box of P. L. Lavrov’s paper an invitation for “K.” to call at the editorial office to receive a letter from Russia, and thinking that the invitation was for me, I called at the office, and soon established friendship with the editor and the younger people who printed the paper.
When I called for the first time at the office—my beard shaved and my “top” hat on—and asked the lady who opened the door, in my very best English, “Is Mr. Lavrov in?” I imagined that no one would ever know who I was, as I had not mentioned my name. It appeared, however, that the lady, who did not know me at all, but well knew my brother while he stayed at Zürich, at once recognized me and ran upstairs to say who the visitor was. “I knew you immediately,” she said afterwards, “by your eyes, which have much in common with those of your brother.”
That time I did not stay long in England. I had been in lively correspondence with my friend James Guillaume, of the Jura Federation, and as soon as I found some permanent geographical work, which I could do in Switzerland as well as in London, I removed to Switzerland. The letters that I got at last from home told me that I might as well stay abroad, as there was nothing in particular to be done in Russia. A wave of enthusiasm was rolling over the country, at that time, in favor of the Slavonians who had revolted against the age-long Turkish oppression, and my best friends, Serghéi (Stepniák), Kelnitz, and several others, had gone to the Balkan peninsula to join the insurgents. “We read,” my friends wrote, “the correspondence of the Daily News about the horrors in Bulgaria; we weep at the reading, and go next to enlist either as volunteers in the Balkan insurgents’ bands or as nurses.”
I went to Switzerland, joined the Jura Federation of the International Workingmen’s Association, and, following the advice of my Swiss friends, settled in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
II
The Jura Federation has played an important part in the modern development of socialism.
It always happens that after a political party has set before itself a purpose, and has proclaimed that nothing short
