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Petersburg,--
new, bright, magnificent, and desperately cold.
A great part of this architectural splendor is due to the present
Emperor, who has wrought a great change in the aspect of the city within
a very few years. A traveller, if he looks at the thing selfishly, ought
to wish him a long reign and arbitrary power, since he makes it his
policy to illustrate his capital with palatial edifices, which are,
however, better for a stranger to look at, than for his own people to pay
for.
We have spent to-day chiefly in seeing some of the galleries of the
Louvre. I must confess that the vast and beautiful edifice struck me far
more than the pictures, sculpture, and curiosities which it contains,--
the shell more than the kernel inside; such noble suites of rooms and
halls were those through which we first passed, containing Egyptian, and,
farther onward, Greek and Roman antiquities; the walls cased in
variegated marbles; the ceilings glowing with beautiful frescos; the
whole extended into infinite vistas by mirrors that seemed like vacancy,
and multiplied everything forever.


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