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

304SUBLIMITY OF THE ENVIRONS

is only an assemblage of contrasts — contrasts so glaring, that it might be said nature and society have been created only in order to hold together elements which would otherwise oppose and repel each other.

Nothing can be more dull than the sky of Petersburg at midday ; but the evenings and mornings, whose twilight occupies three quarters of the whole period of life, are admirable. The summer sun, which is submerged for a moment about midnight, continues for a long time to float along the horizon on a level with the Neva and the lowlands through which it flows. It sheds over the waste, streams of light brilliant enough to beautify nature in her most cheerless aspect. But it is not the enthusiasm produced by the deep colouring of tropic landscapes which this beauty inspires, it is the attraction of a dream, the irresistible influence of a sleep full of memories and of hopes. The promenade of the islands at this hour is the image of a real idyll. No doubt there are many things wanting in these scenes to constitute pictures good as compositions, but nature has more power than art on the imagination of man; her simple aspect suffices under every zone to supply that necessity for admiring which exists in the soul. God has reduced the earth in the vicinity of the pole to the extreme of flatness and nudity; but notwithstanding this poverty, the spectacle of creation will always, in the eye of man, be the most eloquent interpreter of the designs of the Creator. May there not be beauty in the bald head ? For my part, I find the environs of Petersburg more than beautiful: they have a sad and sombre dulness about them which is sublime, and which, in the depth of its