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

J 48JUSTIFICATION OF PROVIDENCE.

to their character as to their understanding; they are better informed, less servile, and possess more energy of sentiment than the other sex. Heroism itself often appears to them natural, and becomes easy. The Princess Troubetzkoï is not the only woman who has followed her husband to Siberia; many exiled men have received from their wives this sublime proof of devotion, which loses none of its value for being less rare than I imagined it: unfortunately I do not know their names. "Where will they find a historian and a poet ? "Were it only on account oí unknown virtues, it would be necessary to believe in a last judgment. The glory of the good is a part which would be wanting to the justice of God : we can imagine the pardon of the Omnipotent; we cannot imagine his indifference. Virtue is only so called, because it cannot be recompensed by men. It would lose its perfection and become a matter of mercenary calculation if it were sure of always being appreciated and remunerated upon earth: virtue which did not reach to the supernatural and the sublime would be incomplete. If evil did not exist, where would there be saints ? The combat is necessary to the victory, and the victory may even ask from God the crown of conqueror. This beautiful spectacle justifies Providence, which, in order to present it to the attentive Heaven, tolerates the errors of the world.

Towards the close of the evening, before permitting me to leave, my entertainers, with the view of paying me a compliment, expedited, by several clays, a ceremony which has been looked forward to for six months in the family : it was the drawing of a lottery, the ob-