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

THE AUTHOR'S FELDJÄGER.225

condition." These new men, so hated by the small number who are their serfs, are also masters of the supreme master ; and are the preparers likewise of a revolution in Russia,—first, by the direct influence of their ideas, and, secondly, by the indirect consequences of the hatred and contempt which they excite among the people. Republican tyranny under autocratical! — what a combination of evils !

These are enemies created by the emperors themselves, in their distrust of the old nobility. An avowed aristocracy, long rooted in the land, but moderated by the progress of manners and the amelioration of customs, would have been an instrument of civilisation preferable to the hypocritical obedience, the destructive influence of a host of commissioners and deputies, the greater number of foreign origin, and all more or less imbued, in the secret of their hearts, with revolutionary notions; all as insolent in their thoughts as obsequious in their words and manners.

My courier, unwilling to perform his business because he is near attaining the prerogative* of thin order of nobility, is the profoundly comic type of its nature and character. I wish I could describe liis slim figure, his carefully-adjusted dress, his sharp, thin, dry, pitiless, yet humble countenance — humble whilst waiting till it may have the right to become arrogant; —in short, this type of a puppy, in a country where conceit is not harmless as with us; for in Russia it is a sure means of rising, if only it unite itself with servility: —but this person eludes the definition of words, as an adder glides out of sight. He represents to my eyes the union of two political