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

THE SP1EIT OF THE WORLD.209

as I do ? Strange fear of the votaries of the age ! They are ever dreading lest their idol should be abandoned. I do not propose to preach to them, and yet I would recal to the minds of these enlightened beings, that the worst of all the forms of intolerance is the intolerance of philosophy.

I cannot live the life of the world because its interests, its objects, or, at least, the means it employs to defend and to attain them, present nothing that might inspire me with that salutary emulation without which a man is conquered in the very outset of those struggles of ambition or of virtue which consti-tute the life of society. There, success is involved in the working out of two conflicting problems ; to conquer our rivals, and to make those rivals proclaim our victory. Herein lies the difficulty of obtaining a conquest, and the, almost, impossibility of maintaining it.

I renounced the aim even before the age of discouragement. Since the day for ceasing to struggle must soon close, I had better not commence it. It was thus that my heart spake, as I called to mind the beautiful expression, ¢£ All that ends is short." Under this feeling I suffered to pass by, without envy as without contempt, the train of bold and ardent jostlers who believe that the world is theirs because they are the world's.

Suffer me then to make my escape, without allowing yourselves to fear that eager combatants will ever be wanted in the struggles of this world, and allow me to extract all the advantage that I am able out of my leisure and my indifference ; besides, may not inaction be only apparent,, and may not the intellect profit by