"In the course of this voyage in company with Mark Twain, we at
length discover, under his good-fellowship and apparent
ingenuousness, faults which we should never have expected. He has
in the highest degree that fault of appearing astonished at
nothing--common, we may say, to all savages. He confesses himself
that one of his great pleasures is to horrify the guides by his
indifference and stupidity. He is, too, decidedly envious. . . .
We could willingly pardon him his patriotic self-love, often
wounded by the ignorance of Europeans, above all in what concerns
the New World, if only that national pride were without mixture of
personal vanity; but how comes it that Mark Twain, so severe upon
those poor Turks, finds scarcely anything to criticize in Russia,
where absolutism has nevertheless not ceased to flourish? We need
not seek far for the cause of this indulgence: the Czar received
our ferocious republicans; the Empress, and the Grand Duchess Mary,
spoke to them in English.
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