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

WANT OF GENEROSITY.67

character of the Russians, so far as I have been able to discern it, after a sojourn in their country, very brief, it is true, but employed without cessation in attentively observing a multitude of persons and of things, and in comparing, with scrupulous care, innumerable facts. The variety of objects which passes before the eyes of a stranger, as much favoured by circumstances as I have been, and as active as I am when excited by curiosity, supplies, to a certain extent, the time and leisure which I have wanted. I naturally take pleasure in admiring: this disposition ought to procure some credit for my opinions when I do not admire.

In general, the men of this country do not appear to me inclined to generosity; they scarcely believe in that quality ; they would deny it if they dared; and if they do not deny it, they despise it, because they have nothing in themselves by which to apprehend its nature. They have more finesse than delicacy, more good temper than sensibility, more pliancy than easy contentedness, more grace than tenderness, more discernment than invention, more wit than imagination, more observation than wit, more of the spirit of selfish calculation than all these qualities together. They never labour to produce results useful to others, but always to obtain some recompense for themselves. Creative genius has been denied them; the enthusiasm which produces the sublime is to them unknown ; sentiments which seek only within themselves for approval and for recompense, they cannot understand. Take from them the moving influences of interest, fear, and vanity, and you deprive them of all action. If they enter the