pomp of the court,
the glory, the power, the hurry of a minister of state; the wealth, the
gaiety, and the pleasures, that is to say, follies of a courtier; if my
master should send me word this moment, that he restores me to all he
banished me from, I protest, if I know myself at all, I would not leave
this wilderness, these deserts, and these frozen lakes, for the palace
of Moscow."

"But, my lord," said I, "perhaps you not only are banished from the
pleasures of the court, and from the power, and authority, and wealth,
you enjoyed before, but you may be absent too from some of the
conveniencies of life; your estate, perhaps, confiscated, and your
effects plundered; and the supplies left you here may not be suitable to
the ordinary demands of life."

"Ay," said he, "that is, as you suppose me to be a lord, or a prince,
&c. So indeed I am; but you are now to consider me only as a man, a
human creature, not at all distinguished from another; and so I can
suffer no want, unless I should be visited with sickness and distempers.
However, to put the question out of dispute; you see our manner; we are
in this place five persons of rank; we live perfectly retired; as suited
to a state of banishment; we have something rescued from the shipwreck
of our fortunes, which keeps us from the mere necessity of hunting for
our food; but the poor soldiers who are here, without that help, live in
as much plenty as we. They go into the woods, and catch sables and
foxes; the labour of a month will maintain them a year; and as the way
of living is not expensive, so it is not hard to get sufficient to
ourselves: so that objection is out of doors."

I have no room to give a full account of the most agreeable conversation
I had with this truly great man; in all which he shewed, that his mind
was so inspired with a superior knowledge of things, so supported by
religion, as well as by a vast share of wisdom, that his contempt of the
world was really as much as he had expressed, and that he was always the
same to the last, as will appear in the story I am going to tell.

I had been here eight months, and a dark dreadful winter I thought it to
be. The cold was so intense, that I could not so much as look abroad
without being wrapt in furs, and a mask of fur before my face, or rather
a hood, with only a hole for breath, and two for sight. The little
daylight we had, as we reckoned, for three months, not above five hours
a day, or six at most;