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

ТПЕ TASK OF ТПЕ AÜTHOE.331

of Germany ? Nations have always good reasons for being what they are, and the best of all is that they cannot be otherwise.

This excuse could not indeed be pleaded by the Russians, at least not by those who read. As they ape every thing, they might be otherwise; and it is just the consciousness of this possibility which renders their government gloomy, even to ferocity ! That government knows too well that it can be sure of nothing with characters which are mere reflections.

A more powerful motive might have checked my candour — the fear of being accused of apostasy. ¢¢ He has long protested," it will be said, " against liberal declamations ; here behold him ceding to the torrent, and seeking false popularity after having disdained it."

Perhaps I deceive myself; but the more I reflect, the less I believe that this reproach can reach me, or even that it will be addressed to me.

It is not only in the present day that a fear of being blamed by foreigners has occupied the minds of the Russians. That strange people unite an extremely boasting spirit with an excessive distrust of self; self-sufficiency without, uncomfortable humility within, are traits which I have observed in the greater number of Russians. Their vanity, which never rests, is, like English pride, always suffering. They also lack simplicity. Naïveté, that French word of which no other language can render the exact sense, because the thing it describes is peculiar to ourselves, naïveté, that simplicity which can become pointedly witty, that gift of disposition which can produce laughter without ever wounding the heart, that for-