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

A RUSSIAN STORM.219

Russians are accustomed to view even nature as a slave. Obstinate imitators, they mistake their vanity for genius, and believe themselves destined to renew, on a scale yet larger than the original, all the wonders of the world. Such creations of the Russian sovereigns, as I have hitherto seen, have evinced, not the love of the arts, but the love only of self.

Among other boasts, I hear it said by many Russians, that their climate also is ameliorating! Will God, then, connive at the ambition of this grasping people? "Will he give them up even the sky and the breeze of the south ? Shall we see Athens in Lapland, Rome at Moscow, the riches of the Thames in the Gulf of Finland, and the history of nations reduced to a question of latitude and longitude ?

While my carriage, after leaving the palace, was crossing rapidly the immense square I have been describing, a violent wind raised immense clouds of dust, and I could only see, as through a veil, the equipages that were passing in all directions. The dust of summer is one of the plagues of Petersburg; it is so troublesome that I even wish for the winter snow. I had scarcely reached my hotel when a tremendous storm burst forth. Darkness at mid-day, thunder without rain, a wind which blew down houses, and, at the same time, a suffocating tempera-ture, were the greeting which Heaven gave during the nuptial banquet. The superstitious viewed these signs as ominous, but soon became re-assured, by observing that the stoi·m did not last long, and that the air was purer after it than before. I recount what I see, without sympathising with it, for I have L 2