He watched with much amusement the restoration of
Turkish self-confidence. "Turkey believes that he is no longer a
sick man, and is turning all his doctors out of the house, to the
immense astonishment of the English doctor, so conscious of his own
rectitude that he cannot understand being sent off with the quacks.
You know in our beautiful Liturgy we have a prayer for the Turks;
it looks as if our supplications had become successful." His
interest in Turkey never flagged. "I am in a great fright," he
said in 1877, "about my dear Turks, because Russia gives virtual
command of the army before Plevna to Todleben, a really great homme
de guerre."
Russophobia was at that time so strong in London that Madame
Novikoff hesitated to visit England, and he himself feared that she
might find it uncomfortable. Her alarm, however, was ridiculed by
Hayward, "most faithful of the Russianisers, ready to do battle for
Russia at any moment, declaring her to be quite virtuous, with no
fault but that of being incomprise." But he groaned over the
humiliation of England under Russia's bold stroke, noting
frequently a decay of English character which he ascribed to
chronic causes.
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