Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

This explosion of national vanity silenced me : I was at Moscow; an inclination to laugh was rising within me, but it would have been dangerous to have given way to it. The argument of my adversary was the same as though a person were to refuse to look upon the Apollo Belvidere because he had elsewhere seen plaster-of-Paris casts of it. The influence of the Mongols survives their conquests among the Russians. Was it, then, to imitate them that they drove them out ? Detractors make little progress, either in the arts or in general civilisation. The Russians observe with malevolence because they lack the perception of perfection: so long as they envy their models they will never equal them. Their empire is immense, but what of that: who would admire the colossus of an ape ?

Such were the angry thoughts that rose in my mind, but of which I suppressed the outward expression, although I believe my disdainful opponent read them on my face, for he did not speak to me any more, unless it was to add, with a nonchalant air, that he had seen olives in the Crimea, and mulberry-trees at Kicw.

For my own part, I congratulate myself that I am only come to Russia for a short time ; a long stay in this land might rob me not only of the courage, but of the desire, to say the truth, in answer to things that I hear and see. Despotism discourages and casts a spell of indifference even over minds that arc the most determined to struggle against its glaring abuses.

Disdain for things that they do not know, appears to me a dominant trait in the character of the Russians.