idea of Switzerland or Italy : the soil is full of inequalities, and that is all. But the contrast presented by these hills, rising in the middle of an expanse, where both the eye and the thoughts lose themselves as on the savannahs of America or the steppes of Asia, produces an effect that is very strik-in<>`. Moscow is the city of panoramas. With its commanding sites and its grotesque edifices, which might serve as models for the fantastic compositions of Martin, it recalls the idea which we form, without knowing why, of Perscpolis, Bagdad, Babylon, or Palmyra,— romantic capitals of fabulous lands, whose history is a poem, and whose architecture is a dream.
HORACE VERNET.
In a word, at Moscow we forget Europe. This was what I did not know in France, although I had read nearly all the travellers' descriptions of the eity. They have then failed in their duty. There is one especially whom I cannot pardon for not having permitted others to enjoy his visit to Russia. No descriptions are equal to the sketches of a painter, exact and, at the same time, picturesque, like Horace Vernet. What man was ever more gifted to perceive, and to make others perceive, the spirit that breathes in things ? The truth of painting lies not so much in the form as in the expression of objects: he understood them like a poet, and transferred them like an artist; consequently, every time I feel the insufficiency of my words, I am inclined to be angry with Horace Vernet.
Here, every view is a landscape. If art has done little for Moscow, the caprice of the builders and the foree of circumstances have created marvels. The extraordinary forms of the edifices, and the grandeur of the masses, strongly impress the imagination. The enjoymentj it must be owned, is of an inferior order: Moscow is not the product of genius; connoisseurs will there find no monuments of art worthy of a minute examination: those monuments are rather the strange and deserted habitations of some race of giants; they are the works of the eyelops. In a city where no great artist has left the impress of his thoughts we may feel astonishment, but nothing more, and astonishment is soon exhausted. However, there is nothing here, not even the disenchantment that follows the first surprise, from which I cannot draw a lesson: more particularly am I struck with С 6
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RUSSIAN FICKLENESS.
the visible intimate connection between the aspect of the city and the character of the people. The Russians love all that dazzles; they are easily seduced by appearances: to excite envy, no matter at what price, contitutes their happiness. The English are gnawed by pride, the Russians are corroded by vanity.
I feel the necessity of here reminding the reader that generalities always pass for injustices. Once for all, I would state that my observations never exclude exceptions; and I avail myself of the occasion to express the respect and admiration I entertain for the merits and agreeable qualities of individuals to whom my criticisms do not apply.
Other travellers have observed before I did, that the less we know of a Russian the more amiable we find him. The Russians have retorted upon those travellers, that they spoke in their own disparagement, and that the coolness of which they complained only proved their want of merit. ' We gave you a good reception,' they add, ' because we are naturally hospitable ; and if we afterwards changed in our manner towards you, it was because we thought more highly of you at first than you deserved.' Such an answer was made a considerable time ago to a French traveller, an able writer, but whose position obliged him to be excessively reserved. I do not mean here to cite either his name or his book. The few truths which, in his prudent recitals, he allowed himself to expose, placed him in a very disagreeable position. This was the penalty for denying himself the exercise of his intellect, in oi`der to submit to expectations which can never be satisfied; not any more by flattering them than by doing them justice. It would cost less
SILK MANUFACTORIES.37
to brave them; and on this opinion the reader will perceive I act.
Moscow prides herself on the progress of her manufactures. The Russian silks here contend with those of both East and West. The merchant-quarter, the Kitaigorod, as well as the street called the Bridge of the Marshals, where the most elegant shops are found, are reckoned among the curiosities of the city. If I mention them it is because I think that the efforts of the Russians to free themselves from the tribute which they pay to the industry of other nations, may produce important political consequences in Europe. The liberty that reigns in Moscow is illusive ; yet it cannot be denied that in its streets there are men who appear to move spontaneously, who think and act under an impulse of their own. Moscow is in this respect very different from Petersburg. Among the causes of the difference, I place in the first rank the vast extent and the varied surface of the territory in the midst of which it stands. Space and inequality (I here take this word in all its acceptations) are the elements of liberty ; for absolute equality is the synonyme of tyranny, though it is the minority who may be placed under the yoke : liberty and equality exclude each other by means of reserves and combinations, more or less abstruse, which neutralise the effect of things while preserving their names.
Moscow remains almost buried in the midst of a country of which it is the capital: hence the seal of originality impressed upon its buildings, the air of liberty which distinguishes its inhabitants, and the little inclination of the Czars for a residence whose
38
RAILROADS.
aspect is so independent. The Czars, ancient tyrants mitigated by the fashion which has metamorphosed them into emperors, and eyen into amiable men, fly Moscow. They prefer Petersburg, with all its inconveniences, for they wish to be in continual communication with the West of Europe. Russia, as formed by Peter the Great, does not trust to herself to live and to learn. At Moscow they could not obtain in a week's time the little importations of the current anecdotes and small gossip of Paris, nor the ephemeral literature of Europe. These details, contemptible as they appear to us, furnish the chief excitement of the Russian court, and consequently of Russia.
If the freezing or the melting snow did not render railroads useless in this land during six or eight months of the year, we should see the Russian government surpass all others in the construction of those roads which are, as it were, lessening the size of earth; for that government suffers more than any other from the inconveniences of distance. But, notwithstanding acceleration of the speed of travelling, a vast extent of territory will always be the chief obstacle to the circulation of ideas: for the soil will not allow itself, like the sea, to be crossed in all directions. The water, which, at first sight, appears destined to separate the inhabitants of the world, is the medium which, in reality, unites them. Wonderful problem ! Man, the prisoner of God, is yet allowed to be the king of nature.
Certainly, were Moscow a, sea-port, or the centre of a vast network of those metal wheel-tracks, those electric conductors of human thought, destined to
ENGLISH CLUB.
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