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

164CIVILISATION INJURIOUS.

ments of society have lost for him. In this patriarchal land it is civilisation which spoils the inhabitants. The Slavonian was naturally ingenious, musical, and almost tender-hearted; the drilled Russian is false, tyrannical, imitative, and foolishly vain. It would take more than a century to establish an accord between the national manners and the new European ideas; supposing that, all the while, Russia were governed by enlightened princes,— friends of progress, as the expression now is. At present, the complete separation of classes makes social life a violent, immoral thing. It might be supposed that it was from this country Rousseau took the first idea of his system ; for it is not even necessary to possess the resources of his magic eloquence to prove that arts and sciences have done more evil than good to the Slavonians. The future will show the world whether military and political glory can compensate the Russian nation for the happiness of whieh their social organisation deprives them.

Elegance is inborn among the men of pure Slavonian blood. Their characters unite a mixture of simplicity, gentleness, and sensibility, whieh seduce all hearts: they are often combined with a good deal of irony and some little deceitfuhiess; but, when the heart is naturally amiable, these faults are transformed into a kind of grace. The people further possess the advantage of a countenance, the delicacy in the expression of which is inimitable; it influences, by an unknown charm, by a tender melancholy, a suffering gentleness, which almost always springs from a secret sense of evil, hid by the sufferer from himself, in order the better to disguise it from others.