He is also credited with a sense of humor, and it must ...

He is also credited with a sense of humor, and it must have found exercise in contemplating the proposals put forward by his enemies in England: that the Ottoman should be bodily transferred from Europe elsewhere; that England should garrison the Balkans with 100,000 men; that the Balkans should be delivered to Austria and German Austria ceded to Prussia in compensation; or their sudden discovery that Russia was a liberating and civilizing power.

Those who kept their heads in this tornado of irresponsible altruism were right in thinking, first, that the English Government might have joined more heartily in the homily; second, that it should have taken the Bulgarian atrocities more seriously. Between the Turk and his Christian victims no Christian power could be neutral.

Between the Turk and the Russian no English Government could be disinterested.

When, therefore, in November 1876 the Tsar made a private gesture of friendship at Livadia and the overture was publicly declined at the Guildhall, the practical conclusion to be drawn was that the Government had subordinated its interest in the Christians to its suspicion of Russia: in a word, considerations of morality to considerations of Empire. This was the theme of the oratorical carnival held at St.