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

Creator. To whatever corner of the earth the restlessness of my heart may impel my steps, it is ever the same God whom I admire, the same voice that I interrogate. Wherever man casts clown a religious eye, he recognises in nature, a body of which God is the soul. The spectre of a sleeping city reminds me of that ballad of Coleridge, in which the English seaman beholds the phantom of a vessel gliding across the sea. These nocturnal illusions are to the inhabitants of the polar regions what the Fata Morgana, in broad day, is to the men of the South : the colours, the lines, and the hour are different; the illusion is the same.

In contemplating with emotion one of the countries of the earth in which nature is the most naked, and where she is considered the least worthy of admiration, I love to dwell upon the consolatory idea that God has dispensed to each point of the globe beauties that enable his children to recognise Him everywhere by indubitable signs, and to recognise also that they owe Him thanks, in whatever zones his providence may have called them to live. The features of the Creator are imprinted upon every portion of the earth, which is thus rendered sacred to the eye of man. Each locality has its soul, according to the poetical expression of Jocelyn. I can never tire of a scene which speaks to me. It may be the same burden unceasingly repeated, yet each time it conveys the idea of something new. The lessons that I can thus draw, suffice for the modest aspirations of my life. A taste for travel is, with me, neither a pretence, a fashion, nor a consolation. I am born a traveller as others are born diplomatists: - To me, my country is every spot