298REASONS FOR NOT RETURNING
friend; and had scarcely set foot on the deck of the English vessel, which was about to weigh anchor, when he threw himself into his companion's arms, exclaiming, " God be praised, we may now breathe freely and speak openly !"
Many people have, doubtless, felt the same sensation : but why has no traveller before recorded it ? Here, without comprehending, I marvel at the prestige which the Russian government exercises over minds. It obtains silence, not only from its own subjects — that were little, — but it makes itself respected, even ît a distance, by strangers escaped from its iron discipline. The traveller either praises it or is silent: this is a mystery which I cannot comprehend. If ever the publication of tins journey should procure me an explanation of the marvel, I shall have additional reason to applaud myself for my sincerity.
I had purposed returning from Petersburg into Germany, by way of `Wilna and Warsaw; but I changed that project.
Miseries like those which Poland suffers cannot be attributed entirely to fatality: in prolonged misfortunes, we may always look to faults as well as to circumstances. To a certain point, nations, like individuals, become accomplices in the fate which pursues them ; they appear accountable for the reverses which, blow after blow, they have to suffer: for, to attentive eyes, destinies arc only the development of characters. On perceiving the result of the errors of a people p\mished with so much severity, I might not be able to abstain from reflections of which I should repent. To represent their case to the oppressors would be a task we should impose upon our-
THROUGH POLAND.299
selves with a kind of joy, sustained, as we should feel, by the idea of courage and generosity which attaches to the accomplishment of a perilous, or, at least, painful duty : but to wound the heart of the victim, to overwhelm the oppressed, though even with deserved strokes, with just reproaches, is an executioner's office, to which the author who does not despise his own pen will never abase himself.
This was my reason for renouncing my proposed journey through Poland.
300
RETURN TO EMS,
CHAR XXXVII. *
RETURN TO EMS. — AUTUMN IN THE VICINITY OF THE RHINE. — COMPARISON BETWEEN RUSSIAN AND GERMAN SCENERY.—THE YOUTH OF THE SOUL.—DEFINITION OF MISANTHROPY. — MISTAKE OF THE TRAVELLER REGARDING RUSSIA. — RESUME OF THE JOURNEY. — A LAST PORTRAIT OF RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS. —
6ECRET OF THEIR POLICY. A GLANCE AT THE CHRISTIAN
CHURCHES. — THE TASK OF THE AUTHOR. DANGER OF SPEAK
ING OF THE GREEK RELIGION IN RUSSIA. — PARALLEL BETWEEN
SPAIN AND RUSSIA.
I left Ems for Russia five months ago, and return to this elegant village after having made a tour of some thousand leagues. My stay here during the previous spring was disagreeable to me by reason of the erowd of bathers and drinkers : I find it delicious now that I am literally alone, with nothing to do but to enjoy a beautiful autumn sky in the midst of mountains, the solitude of which I admire; and to review my recollections, while I at the same time seek the repose I need after the rapid journey just completed.
With what a contrast am I presented! In Russia, I was deprived of all the scenes of nature; for I cannot give the name of nature to solitudes without one picturesque object, — to seas, lakes, and rivers, whose banks are on a level with the water; to marshes without bounds, and steppes without vegetation, under a sky without light. Those plains are not, in-
* Written at Ems, October, 1839.
AUTUMN ON THE RHINE.3ül
deed, devoid of a kind of beauty; but grandeur without gi`ace soon fatigues. What pleasure can the traveller have in traversing immense spaces, whose surface and whose horizon are always destitute of feature ? Such monotony aggravates the fatigue of locomotion, by rendering it fruitless. Surprises must always constitute a great portion of the enjoyment of travelling; and the hope of them must always furnish much of the stimulus that keeps alive the zeal of the traveller.
It is with sensations of real happiness that I find myself at the elose of the season in a varied and beautiful country. I cannot express the delight with which I stray, and for a moment lose myself among large woods, where showers of leaves have strewed the earth and obliterated the paths. I am carried back to the descriptions of Rene; and my heart beats as it beat formerly while reading that sorrowful and sublime conversation between nature and a human soul. That religious and lyrical prose has lost none of its power over me ; and I have said to myself, astonished at my own easily-affected feelings, youth will surely never end ! Sometimes I perceive through the foliage, brightened by the first hoar-frost, the vapoury distances of the valley of the Lahn, contiguous to the most beautiful river in Europe; and I greatly admire the grace and calm of the landscape.
The points of view formed by the ravines, which serve as channels for the tributaries of the Rhine, are infinitely varied; those of the Volga all resemble each other. The aspect of the elevated plains that are here called mountains, because they separate deep valleys, is in general cold and monotonous; still this cold and monotony is light, life, and motion, after the
302 THE YOUTH ОГ THE SOUL.
marshes of Muscovy: the bright rays of the sun spread a southern gladness over the whole face of the northern landscape; in which the dryness of the contour and the stiffness of the broken lines are lost amid the mists of autumn.
The repose of the woods during the autumn season is very striking: it contrasts with the activity of the fields, among which man, warned by the calm forerunner of winter, hastens to complete his labours.
This instructive and solemn spectacle, which is to last as long as the world endures, interests me as much as though I had seen it for the first time, or knew that I was never to see it again : the intellectual life is nothing but a succession of discoveries. The soul, when it has not expended its vigour in the too habitual affectations of people of the world, preserves an inexhaustible faculty of surprise and curiosity ; new powers arc ever exciting it to new efforts; this world no longer suffices for it; it summons and it apprehends the infinite: its ideas ripen, yet they do not proceed to decay; and this it is Mwhich intimates to us that there is something beyond the things which are seen.
It is the intensity of our life which forms its variety ; what is strongly felt always appears new: language partakes of this eternal freshness of impressions ; each new affection imparts its special harmony to the words destined to express it: and thus it is that the colouring of style is the most certain test of the novelty—I might say, the sincerity of sentiments. When ideas are borrowed, their source is carefully concealed; but the harmony of the language never deceives, — sure proof of the sensibility of the soul.