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

302 THE YOUTH ОГ THE SOUL.

marshes of Muscovy: the bright rays of the sun spread a southern gladness over the whole face of the northern landscape; in which the dryness of the contour and the stiffness of the broken lines are lost amid the mists of autumn.

The repose of the woods during the autumn season is very striking: it contrasts with the activity of the fields, among which man, warned by the calm forerunner of winter, hastens to complete his labours.

This instructive and solemn spectacle, which is to last as long as the world endures, interests me as much as though I had seen it for the first time, or knew that I was never to see it again : the intellectual life is nothing but a succession of discoveries. The soul, when it has not expended its vigour in the too habitual affectations of people of the world, preserves an inexhaustible faculty of surprise and curiosity ; new powers arc ever exciting it to new efforts; this world no longer suffices for it; it summons and it apprehends the infinite: its ideas ripen, yet they do not proceed to decay; and this it is Mwhich intimates to us that there is something beyond the things which are seen.

It is the intensity of our life which forms its variety ; what is strongly felt always appears new: language partakes of this eternal freshness of impressions ; each new affection imparts its special harmony to the words destined to express it: and thus it is that the colouring of style is the most certain test of the novelty—I might say, the sincerity of sentiments. When ideas are borrowed, their source is carefully concealed; but the harmony of the language never deceives, — sure proof of the sensibility of the soul.