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

200EETURN TO PETERSBUEG.

garden, which, for Russia, is very handsome, sailing in a little boat on the Neva, and enjoying the refined and agreeable conversation of a member of the fashionable circles. What I have seen at Schlus-selberg will make me cautious how I place myself again in a position where it is necessary to face such interrogations as I submitted to in that society. Such drawing-rooms resemble fields of battle. The circles of fashion, with all their vices, seem preferable to this petty world, with all its precise virtues.

' I was again in Petersburg soon after midnight, having travelled during the day about thirty-six leagues through sandy and miry roads, with two sets of hired horses.

The demands upon the animals are in proportion to those made upon the men. The Russian horses seldom last more than eight or ten years. The pavement of Petersburg is as fatal to them as it is to the carriages, and, it may be said, to the riders, whose heads nearly split as soon as they are off the few wooden roads that can be found. It is true that the Russians have laid their detestable pavement in regularly-figured compartments of large stones,—an ornament which only increases the evil, for it makes riding in the streets yet more jolting. A certain appearance of elegance or magnificence—a boastful display of wealth and grandeur, is all that the Russians care for: they have commenced the work of civilisation by creating its superfluities. If such be the right way of proceeding, let us cry, " Long live. vanity, and down with common sens/'!