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

In France, I had imagined myself in accord with these rigorous disciplinarians; but since I have lived under a despotism which imposes military rule upon the population of an entire empire, I admit that I prefer a little of the disorder which announces vigour to the perfect order which destroys life.

In Russia, the government interferes with every thing and vivifies nothing. In that immense empire, the people, if not tranquil, are mute ; death hovers over all heads, and strikes capriciously whom it pleases: man there has two coffins, the cradle and the tomb. The Russian mothers, ought to weep the birth more than the death of their children.

I do not believe that suicide is common there : the people suffer too much to kill themselves. Singular disposition of man ! — when terror presides over his life, he does not seek death ; he knows what it is already. *

But if the number of suicides in Russia were ever so great, no one would know it; the knowledge of

* Dickens says — speaking of the solitary prison of Philadelphia — " Suicides are rare among the prisoners ; are almost, indeed, unknown. But no argument in favour of the system can reasonably be deduced from this circumstance, although it is very often urged. AH men who have made diseases of the mind their study, know perfectly well that such extreme depression and despair, as to change the whole character, and beat down all its powers of elasticity and self-resistance, may be at work within a man, and yet stop short of self-destruction."— American Notes for General Circulation.

The great writer, the profound moralist, the Christian philosopher from whom I borrow these lines, has not only the authority of talent, and of a style which engraves his thoughts on brass, but his opinion on this subject is law.