I bowed, strained, and endeavoured to be, if
possible, more respectful than ever, yet I really
could hardly prevent my lips from muttering aloud,
that I had sooner die a homely English peasant
than live to be a Russian prince!--in short, his
Highness's words acted upon my mind like thunder
upon beer. And, moreover, I could almost have
sworn that I was an old lean wolf, contemptuously
observing a bald ring rubbed by the collar, from
the neck of a sleek, well-fed mastiff dog;
however, recovering myself, I managed to give as
much information as it was in my humble power to
afford; and my noble guest then taking his
departure, I returned to my open window, to give
vent in solitude (as I gazed upon the horse bath)
to my own reflection upon the subject.

"Although the petty rule of my life has been never
to trouble myself about what the world calls
'politics'--(a fine word, by the by, much easier
expressed than understood)--yet, I must own, I am
always happy when I see a nation enjoying itself,
and melancholy when I observe any large body of
people suffering pain or imprisonment. But of all
sorts of imprisonment, that of the mind is, to my
taste, the most cruel; and, therefore, when I
consider over what immense dominions the Emperor
of Russia presides, and how he governs, I cannot
help sympathizing most sincerely with those
innocent sufferers, who have the misfortune to be
born his subjects; for if a Russian Prince be not
freely permitted to go to Paris, in what a
melancholy state of slavery and debasement must
exist the minds of what we call the lower classes?

"As a sovereign remedy for this lamentable
political disorder, many very sensible people in
England prescribe, I know, that we ought to have
resource to arms. I must confess, however, it
seems to me that one of the greatest political
errors England could commit would be to declare,
or to join in declaring, war with Russia; in
short, that an appeal to brute force would, at
this moment, be at once most unscientifically to
stop an immense moral