; it is natural to conclude from that, that what we call
in France the pleasures of conversation cannot be there met with:
the company is much too numerous to allow a conversation of any
interest even to be kept up in it. In the best society the most
perfect good manners prevail, but there is neither sufficient
information among the nobility, nor sufficient confidence among
persons living habitually under the influence of a despotic court
and government, to allow them to know any thing of the charms of
intimacy. The greater part of the great noblemen of Russia express
themselves with so much elegance and propriety, that one frequently
deceives one's self at the outset about the degree of wit and
acquirements of those with whom you are conversing. The debut is
almost always that of a gentleman or lady of fine understanding: but
sometimes also, in the long run, you discover nothing but the debut.
They are not accustomed in Russia to speak from the bottom of their
heart or understanding; they had in former times such fear of their
masters, that they have not yet been able to accustom themselves to
that wise freedom, for which they are indebted to the character of
Alexander.

Some Russian gentlemen have tried to distinguish themselves in
literature, and have given proofs of considerable talent in this
career; but knowledge is not yet sufficiently diffused to create a
public judgment formed by individual opinions. The character of the
Russians is too passionate to allow them to like ideas in the least
degree abstract; it is by facts only that they are amused; they have
not yet had time or inclination to reduce facts to general ideas. In
addition, every significant idea is always more or less dangerous,
in the midst of a court where mutual observation, and more
frequently envy are the predominant feelings.

The silence of the East is here transformed into amiable words, but
which generally never penetrate beyond the surface. One feels
pleasure for a moment in this brilliant atmosphere, which is an
agreeable dissipation of life; but in the long run no information is
acquired in it, no faculties are developed in it, and men who pass
their life in this manner never acquire any capacity for study or
business. Far otherwise was it with the society of Paris; there we
have seen men whose characters have been entirely formed by the
lively or serious conversation to which the intercourse between the
nobility and men of letters gave