Word: monke
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Rasputin. When a guest broached to the Grand Duke Alexander the subject of the notorious "Black Monk" called Rasputin, or the "Debauchee," he recoiled with a slight gesture of disgust. Since His Imperial Highness' wife is a sister-in-law of the assassinated Tsaritsa Alexandra, who was the chief patroness of Rasputin, no subject would well have been more delicate. When it was made clear however that the questioner did not share the commonly received opinion of Rasputin, but thought him in some respects admirable, the Grand Duke Alexander perceptibly brightened and said: "He was a great hypnotist-very...
...They called him a monk but he was no holy man. He was a peasant-so rough and dirty-and so he was spoiled. He wanted all he could get, and so there was much intrigue. But what were called his 'orgies' were always far away from the Imperial Family...
...march and fight to their uttermost, exultant limit, while always feeding and bedding them as well as could 'by any possibility be done. That he defied the Tsar, the politicians and Rasputin separately, collectively and repeatedly is well known. On one celebrated occasion the Black Monk had persuaded the Tsar to order that he, Rasputin, should inspect the Crank Duke Nicholas' lines, and the "Debauchee" wired that he was coming. He changed his plans upon receiving a one-sentence telegram from the Grand Duke Nicholas...
Today such sardonic defiance of an Absolute Autocrat and a Hypnotist-Monk may seem more witty than significant; but at the time it took titanic courage. No wonder the last, scattered, phantom remnants of the Imperial Army have remained fanatically loyal to Nicholas. Last week, in Nice, the Grand Duke, stricken with pneumonia, sank low, and lower. Oxygen was finally administered and some recovery noted; but tearful, fatalistic members of Nicholas' entourage seemed to sense and fear that the old warrior was joining his last battle with Death...
Perhaps the most beautiful feature in the collection is a group of reproductions of bibles written by monks of the thirteenth century, the pages of which are highly illustrated in brilliant colors. Two reproductions from the Bible Moralisee, which is a French work of the thirteenth century, show the pages from Matthew and Luke in which the story of the nativity is written, with the margin beside each verse illustrating the content with colored drawings. Another interesting group contains plates made from old paintings depicting the life of Christ as a monk of the twelfth century...