He did not mind killing a
few thousands of men at a time; and he was answerable for several
pyramids of skulls which remained long after his manly spirit had passed
away. He occasionally had prisoners flayed alive or impaled merely by
way of instituting a change; and I think that some graphic British
historian should at once give us a good life of this remarkable and
royal man. The massacre of the revolted peasants would afford a fine
opening to a stern rhetorician; he might lead off thus--"Dost thou think
that this king cared for noble sentiment? Thou poor creature who canst
not look on a man without turning green with feminine terror, this
writer begs to inform you and all creatures of your sort that law is law
and discipline is discipline, and the divine origin of both is
undeniable even in an age of advertised soap and interminable spouting.
Ivan had no parliamentary eloquence under his control, but he had cold
steel and whips and racks and wheels, and he employed them all with
vigour for the repression of undisciplined scoundrels. He butchered some
thousands of innocent men! Ah, my sentimental friend, an anarchic mob
cannot be ruled by sprinkling rose-water; the lash and the rope and the
stern steel are needed to bring them to order! When my Noble One, with a
glare in his lion eyes, watched the rebels being skinned alive, he was
performing a truly beneficent function and preparing the way for that
vast, noble, and expansive Russia which we see to-day.
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