When a people counterfeit the social forms of another community, without penetrating into the spirit which animates it — when they seek lessons in civilisation, not from the ancient founders of human
312THE STUDY OF ANCIENT MODELS.
institutions, but from strangers whose riches tliey envy without respecting their character—when their imitation is hostile, and yet falls into puerile precision—when they borrow from a neighbour whom they affect to disdain, even the very modes of dress and of domestic life, they become a mere echo, a reflection ; they exist no longer for themselves.
The society of the middle ages could adore antiquity without being in danger of parodying it; because creative power, when it exists, is never lost, whatever use man may put it to. What a store of imagination is displayed in the erudition of the fifteenth century !
A respect for models is the seal of a creative genius.
Thus it was that the studies of the classics in the West, at the epoch of their revival, scarcely influenced any thing beyond the
Russia alone, more recently civilised, has been de^ prived by the impatience of her chiefs of an essential fermenting process, and of the benefits of a slow and natural culture.
The internal labour which forms a great people, and renders them fit to rule, has been wanting. The
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nation will for ever feel the effects of this absence of a proper life that marked the epoch of their political awakening. Adolescence, that laborious age in which the spirit of man assumes all the responsibility of its independence, was lost to them. Their princes, especially Peter the Great, paying no respect to time, suddenly and forcibly made them pass from a state of infancy to a state of virility. Scarcely yet escaped from a foreign yoke, every thing that was not Mongol seemed to them liberty; and it was thus that, in the joy of their inexperience, they accepted servitude itself as a deliverance, because imposed upon them by their legitimate sovereigns. The people, already debased by slavery, were sufficiently happy, sufficiently independent, if only their tyrant bore a Russian instead of a Tartar name.
The effect of such an illusion still remains: originality of thought has shunned this soil, of which the children, broken in to slavery, have only seriously imbibed, even at the present day, two sentiments, terror and ambition. What is fashion for them, except an elegant chain worn only in public ? Russian politeness, however well acted it may be, is more ceremonious than natural; for urbanity is a flower that can blossom only on the summit of the social tree: this plant will not graft; it must strike its own roots, and its stalk, like that of the aloe, is centuries in shooting up. Many generations of semi-barbarians have to die in a land before the upper stratum of the social earth gives birth to men really polite. Many ages, teeming with memories and associations, are essential to the education of a civilised people : the mind of a child born of polished parents can alone ripen fast
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enough to understand all the reality that there is in politeness. It is a secret exchange of voluntary sacrifices. Nothing is more delicate, or, it might be said, more truly moral, than the principles which constitute perfect elegance of manners. Such politeness, to resist the trial of the passions, cannot be altogether distinct from that elevation of sentiment which no man acquires by himself alone, for it is more especially upon-the soul that the influences of early education operate; in a word, true urbanity is a heritage. 'Whatever little value the present age may place on time, nature, in its works, places a great deal. Formerly a certain refinement of taste characterised the Russians of the South; and, owing to the relations kept up during the most barbarous ages with Constantinople by the sovereigns of Kiew, a love of the arts reigned in that part of the Slavonian empire ; at the same time that the traditions of the East maintained there a sentiment of the great, and perpetuated a certain dexterity among the artists and workmen ; but these advantages, fruits of ancient relations with a people advanced in a civilisation inherited from antiquity, were lost during the invasion of the Mongols.
That crisis forced primitive Russia to forget its history. Slavery debases in a manner that excludes true politeness, which is incompatible with any thing servile, for it is the expression of the most elevated and delicate sentiments. It is only when politeness becomes, so to speak, a current coin among an entire people, that such a people can be said to be civilised ; the primitive rudeness, the brutal personality of human nature, are then attacked from the
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cradle by the lessons which each individual receives in his family : the child of man is not humane; and if he is not at the commencement of life turned from his cruel inclinations, he will never be really polite. Politeness is only the code of pity applied to the every-day affairs of society; this code more especially inculcates pity for the sufferings of self-love : it is also the most universal, the most appropriate, and the most practical remedy that has been hitherto found against egotism.
Whatever pretensions may be made, all these refinements, natural results of the work of time, are unknown to the present Russians, who seem to remember Sarai much better than Constantinople, and who, with a few exceptions, are still nothing better than well-dressed barbarians. They remind me of portraits badly painted, but very finely varnished.
It was Peter the Great, who, with all the imprudence of an untaught genius, all the temerity of a man the more impatient because deemed omnipotent, with all the perseverance of an iron character, sought to snatch from Europe the plants of an already ripened civilisation, instead of resigning himself to the slow progress of sowing the seeds in his own soil. That too highly lauded man produced a merely artificial work: it may be astonishing, but the good done by his barbarous genius was transient, the evil is irreparable.
How does a power to influence the politics of Europe benefit Russia ? Factitious interests! vain, foolish passions ! Its real interests are to have within itself the principles of life, and to develop them : a nation which possesses nothing within itself but obe-p 2
316THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.
dience docs not live. The nation of which I speak has been posted at the window; it looks out — it listens — it feels like a man witnessing some exhibition. When will this game cease ?
