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

AUSTERITY OF PETER THE GREAT.157

carpenter of our days would not lodge his apprentice in such a place.

This glorious austerity illustrates the epoch and the country as much as the man. In Russia, at that time, every thing was sacrificed to the future; every one was employed in building the palaces of their yet unborn masters; and the original founders of the magnificent edifices, not experiencing themselves the wants of luxury, were content to be the purveyors of the future civilisation, and took pride in preparing fitting abodes for the unknown potentates who were to follow them. There is certainly a greatness of mind evidenced in this care which a chieftain and his people take for the power, and even the vanity, of the generations that are yet to come. The reliance which the living have thus placed in the glory of their distant posterity has something about it which is noble and original. It is a disinterested and poetical sentiment, far loftier than the respect which men and nations are accustomed to entertain for their ancestors.

Elsewhere, great cities abound with monuments raised in memory of the past. St. Petersl)urg, in all its magnificence and immensity, is a trophy raised by the Russians to the greatness of the future. The hope which produces such efforts appears to me sublime. Never, since the construction of the Jewish temple, has the faith of a people in its own destinies raised up from the earth a greater wonder than St. Petersburg. And what renders more truly admirable this legacy, left by one man to his ambitious country, is/"that it has been accepted by history.

The prophecy of Peter the Giant, sculptured upon