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

At length the captain came to inform us that the nut of the screw of one of the pistons was broken, and that all would be made right again in a quarter of an hour.

ANCIENT FKENCH SOCIETY.95

At this news the fears that each party had more or less concealed betrayed themselves by a general explosion of rejoicing. Each confessed his thoughts and fears, all laughed at each other, and those who were the most candid in their confessions were the least laughed at. The evening that had commenced so ominously concluded with a dance and song.

Before separating for the night, Prince К

complimented me for my good manners in listening with apparent pleasure to his stories. One may recognise the well-bred man, he observed, by the manner he assumes in listening to another. I replied that the best way by which to seem to be listening, was to listen. This answer, repeated by the prince, was lauded beyond its merit. Nothing is lost, and every thought is done more than justice to by persons whose benevolence even is intellectual.

The great eharm of ancient French society lay in the art of making the best of others. If this amiable art is scarcely known among us in the present day, it is because it requires greater refinement of mind to praise than to depreciate. He who knows how to estimate all things, disdains nothing, and refuses to join in ridicule; but where envy reigns depreciation mixes with all that is said. Jealousy in the guise of wit, and under the mask of good sense, (for pretended good sense is always marked by a love of ridicule,) is the evil sentiment which in these days conspires against the pleasures of social life. In its endeavour to appear good and amiable, true politeness really becomes so ; its possession seems to me to embrace that of all other virtues.

Об

ISLE OF DAGO.

I shall here recount two stories, which will show how little meritorious was the attention for which I had been complimented.

We were passing the isle of Dago on the coast of Esthonia. The appearance of this spot is melancholy; it is a cold solitude, where nature appears naked and sterile, rather than savage and imposing ; it seems as though she meant to repel man by the dulness, rather than by the terrors of her aspect.'

' A strange scene has been witnessed in that isle,'

remarked Prince К.

' At what period ? '

' Not long ago, it was under the Emperor Paul,'

' Pray relate it to us.'

The prince then recounted, in a very interesting manner, the history of the Baron de Sternberg,

?ARON DE STERNBERG.

U7

CHAP. VI.

TRAGEDY OF BARON DE STERNBERG. — TYPE OF LORD BYRON'S

HEROES. PARALLEL BETWEEN SIR TV. SCOTT AND BYRON.

—HISTORICAL ROMANCE. — MARRIAGE OF PETER THE GREAT. —

ROMODANWYSKI. INFLUENCE OF THE GREEK CHURCH IN

RUSSIA. TYRANNY SUPPORTED BY FALSEHOOD. CORPSE IN

THE CHURCH OF REVEL.THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER DECEIVED.

RUSSIAN SENSITIVENESS TO THE OPINIONS OF FOREIGNERS. —

A SPY.

It must be remembered that it is the Prince K·

who speaks.

' Baron Ungern de Sternberg had travelled over the greater part of Europe. He was a man of intelligence and observation, and his travels had made him all that he was capable of being made, namely, a great character developed by study and experience.

' On his return to St. Petersburgh, in the reign of the Emperor Paul, he fell into undeserved disgrace ; and, under the bitter feeling which this produced, determined to quit the court. He shut lumself up in the island of Dago, of which he was lord; and in the retirement of this wild domain swore a mortal hatred to all human kind, to revenge himself on the emperor, whom he viewed as the representative of the whole

race.

' This individual, who was living when we were children, has served as a model for more than one of Lord Byron's heroes.

' In his seclusion he affected a sudden passion for study, and, in order to pursue freely his scientific

VOL. I.F

m

BARON DE STERNBERG.

labours, he added to his mansion a very high tower, the Avails of which you can see with the spy-glass.'

Here the prince paused, and we took a view of the tower of Dago. The prince resumed:

' This tower he called his library, and crowned its summit with a sort of glazed lantern like an observatory, or rather light-hoise. He often repeated to his servants that he could only labour at night, and then no where but in this solitary place. It was there that he retired, as he said, to meditate, and to seek peace. ' No guests were admitted into this retreat except an only son, still a child, and his tutor.

' Towards midnight, when the baron believed them to be both asleep, he used often to shut himself up in his laboratory; the glass tower of which was then lighted with a lamp so brilliant, that, at a distance, it might be taken for a signal. This light-house, though not one in reality, was calculated to deceive strange vessels, that were in danger of being lost on the island, if their captains, venturing too far, did not perfectly know each point of the coast in the perilous Gulf of Finland.

' This error was precisely that which the terrible baron hoped for. Raised upon a rock, in the midst of a stormy sea, the perfidious tower became the beacon of inexperienced pilots; and the unfortunate beings, who were misled by the false hope that glittered before them, met their death at the moment they believed they had found a shelter from the storm.

' You may judge that nautical regulations were at that time very imperfectly maintained in Russia.