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

86DESPOTISM IN LITERATURE.

returned, his health destroyed, his mind cast down, and his imagination radically cured of its chimeras. After this trait will you yet put trust in the official words or the public acts of the Emperor?"

" The Emperor is a man ; he shares human weaknesses. Something must have shocked him in the allusions of the young poet. Perhaps they were European rather than national. The emperor proceeds on a principle the very opposite to that of Catherine II., he braves Europe instead of flattering it. This is wrong, I admit; for studied opposition is in itself a species of dependence, since under it a man is only influenced by contradiction ; but it is pardonable, especially if yon reflect on the evil caused to Russia by princes who were possessed all their life with the mania of imitation."

" You are incorrigible !" exclaimed the advocate of the ancient boyards. " You believe, then, in the pos-siblity of Russian civilisation ? It promised well before the time of Peter the Great, but that prince destroyed the fruit in its germ. Go to Moscow, it is tli£ centre of the ancient empire; yet you will see that all minds are turned towards speculations of industry, and that the national character is as much effaced there as at St. Petersburg. The Emperor Nicholas commits to-day, though with different лаеws, a fault analogous to that of Peter the Great. He does not take into account the history of an entire age, the age of the Emperor Peter : history has its fatalities, — the fatalities of faìts accompl¡s. Woe to the prince who does not submit to these !"

The day was advanced; wTe separated, and I continued my walk, musing upon the energetic feeling