Note 338 — Chapter IV

A recent authoress, who had admirable opportunities of studying the society of St. Petersburg, which she estimated with that fine tact peculiar to an accomplished woman, was amazed at this state of things among classes surrounded with every form of luxury and wealth: ‘a total absence of all rational tastes or literary topics…. Here it is absolutely mauvais genre to discuss a rational subject—mere pédanterie to be caught upon any topics beyond dressing, dancing, and a jolie tournure.’ Letters from the Baltic, 1841, vol. ii. p. 233. M. Custine (La Russie en 1839, vol. i. p. 321) says ‘Règle générale, personne ne profère jamais un mot qui pourrait intéresser vivement quelqu'un.’ At vol. ii. p. 195, ‘De toutes les facultés de l'intelligence, la seule qu'on estime ici c'est le tact.’ Another writer of repute, M. Kohl, contemptuously observes, that in Russia, ‘the depths of science are not even guessed at.’ Kohl's Russia, 1842, Lond. p. 142.