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

their rudeness, we should call scientific in a church or a theatre. These melodies are not sweetly inspired; but, at a distance, the numerous voices counteracting each other in choruses, remarkable for the mournfulness of the accords, produce a novel and profound impression upon us Western people. The plaintive sadness of the sounds is not diminished by the decoration of the scene. A thick forest of masts bounds the view on two sides; on the other, a solitary plain, lost in a forest of firs : by degrees the lights are seen to diminish; at length they become extinguished; the obscurity heightens the effect of the eternal silence of these pale regions, and spreads in the soul a new surprise : night is the mother of astonishment. All the scenes that a short time before animated the desert are effaced; vague recollections succeed to the movements of life; and the traveller finds himself alone with the Russian police, who render the darkness doubly fearful: he believes himself in a dream, and regains his lodging, his mind full of poetiy, that is, of a vague fear, and of mournful presentiments. It is impossible for a moment to forget, while travelling over Russia, that the people are Orientals, who in their former migrations lost their road, and whose chiefs, by mistake, led towards the north, a people born to live in the sun.