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

that I admire, every place in which I recognise God in his works; and of all the works of God, that which I understand the most easily is the aspect of nature, and its affinities with the creations of art. God there reveals himself to my soul through the indefinable relations established between His eternal Word and the fugitive thoughts of man. This contemplation, ever the same, yet ever new, is the food of my mind, the secret and the apology of my life ; it employs both my moral and my intellectual powers ; it occupies my time, and absorbs my spirit. Yes, in the melancholy yet delicious isolation to which my vocation as pilgrim condemns me, curiosity takes the place of ambition, power, standing and career. These reveries, lam aware, do not belong to my years. M. de Chateaubriand was too great a poet to describe to us a Rene growing old. The lassitudes of youth excite sympathy: its future supplies the place of energy and of hope; but the resignation of Réné* grown hoary would scarcely add to eloquence. The Site of myself, an humble gleaner in the field of poetry, is to show how a man grows old who was born to die young : a subject more sad than interesting, an ungrateful task. Nevertheless, I will say everything without timidity and without scruple, because I affect nothing. Called by my character, which has made my destiny, to contemplate the life of others rather than to live myself, if I were to be refused the privilege of reverie, under pretext that I have enjoyed too long this intoxication of children and of poets, I should be robbed before the time of the gift which God had imparted for my existence. But what would become of society, it may be said, if every one acted