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

166ELEGANCE AND INDUSTRY

their glance, — that glance which was so well characterised by the Greeks.

The ancient Greeks were endowed with an exquisite talent for appreciating men and tilings, and for describing them by names ; a faculty which renders their language rich among all the European languages, and their poetry divine among all poetic schools.

The passionate fondness of the Russian peasants for tea proves to me the elegance of their nature, and well accords with the description I have given of them. Tea is a refined beverage: it has become in Russia an absolute necessary. `\Vhen the common people ask for drink-money, they say, for tea, na tchiai.

This instinct of good taste has no connection with mental culture; it does not even exclude barbarism and cruelty, but it excludes vulgarity.

The spectacle now before my eyes proves to me the truth of what I have always heard respecting the Russians' singular dexterity and industry.

A Muscovite peasant makes it a principle to recognise no obstacles,—I do not mean to his own desires, unhappy creature ! but to the orders he receives. Aided by his inseparable hatchet, he becomes a kind of magician, who creates in a moment all that is wanted in the desert. He repairs your carriage, or, if it is beyond repair, lie makes another, a kind of telega, skilfully availing himself of the remains of the old one in the construction of the new. I was advised in Moscow to travel in a tarandasse, and I should have done well to have followed that advice; for, with such an equipage, there is never danger of stopping on the road. It can be repaired, and even re-constructed, by every Russian peasant.