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

146FAMILY SOIREE.

drinking coffee. Dinner is not here the repast which finishes the labours of the day; and when I took leave of the lady of the house, she had the kindness to engage me to return and pass the evening with her. I accepted the invitation, for I felt it would be impolite to refuse it: all that is offered to me here, is done with so much good taste, that neither my fatigue nor my wish to retire and write to my friends, are sufficient to preserve my liberty: such hospitality is a pleasant tyranny; it would be indelicate not to accept it; a earriage-and-four and a house are placed at my disposal, a whole family are troubling themselves to amuse me and to show me the country; and this is done without any affected compliments, superfluous protestations, or importunate empi`esscment: I do not know how to resist so much rare simplicity, grace, and elegance; I should yield were it only from a patriotic instinct, for there is in these agreeable manners a souvenir of ancient France which affects and attracts me: it seems as though I had come to the frontiers of the civilised world to reap a part of the heritage of the French ^ spirit of the eighteenth century, a spirit that has been long lost among ourselves. This inexpressible charm of good manners, and of simple language, reminds me of a paradox of one of the most intellectual men I have ever known : " There is not," he says, " a bad action nor a bad sentiment that has not its source in a fault of manners ; consequently true politeness is virtue ; it is all the virtues united." He went yet further ; he pretended there was no other vice but that of coarseness.

At nine o'clock this evening I returned to the