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

50 JOURNEY FROM BERLIN TO LUBECK,

air, like horses set free, or birds let loose from their cages: men, women, the young and the old, are all as happy as schoolboys on a holiday. The same persons when they return have long faces and gloomy looks; their words are few and abrupt; their countenances full of care. I conclude from this, that a country which they quitted with so much joy, and to which they return with so much regret, is a bad country."

Cí Perhaps you are right," I replied ; " but your remarks, at least, prove to me that Eussians are not such dissemblers as they have been represented."

íf They are so among themselves ; but they do not mistrust us honest Germans," said the landlord, retiring, and smiling knowingly.

Here is a man who is afraid of being taken for a good-natured simpleton, thought I: he must travel himself in order to know how greatly the description, which travellers (often superficial and careless in their observations) give of different nations, tends to influence these nations' character. Each separate individual endeavours to protest against the opinion generally established with respect to the people of his country.

Do not the women of Paris aspire to be simple and unaffected ? It may be here observed, that nothing can be more opposite than the Russian and the German character.

My journey from Berlin to Lubeck was very melancholy. An imaginary trouble (at least I still hope that there is no foundation for it) lias produced in me one of those nervous agitations, that are more disquieting than the best founded grief.

The imagination well knows how to torment itself.