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

THROUGH POLAND.299

selves with a kind of joy, sustained, as we should feel, by the idea of courage and generosity which attaches to the accomplishment of a perilous, or, at least, painful duty : but to wound the heart of the victim, to overwhelm the oppressed, though even with deserved strokes, with just reproaches, is an executioner's office, to which the author who does not despise his own pen will never abase himself.

This was my reason for renouncing my proposed journey through Poland.