dreams of an ardent soul, and only sought whither to carry himself
and his accumulations of knowledge.

"Muscovy, wild still, but swelling into vigour, with all her
boundless snows and forests, the mystery of her orientalism, was to
many a newly-discovered land--a rich mine for human genius. Muscovy,
then for the first time beginning to gain mastery over her internal
and external foes, then first felt the necessity for real, material
civilization."

Antony pays a farewell visit to his mother at the humble tower in Bohemia,
where she resided estranged from his father, of whose rank and condition
she left him ignorant.

"If there were a paradise upon earth, Antony would have found it in
the whole month which he passed in the Bohemian castle. Oh! he would
not have exchanged that poor abode, the wild nature on the banks of
the Elbe, the caresses of his mother, whose age he would have
cherished with his care and love--no! he would not have exchanged all
this for magnificent palaces, for the exertions of proud kinsmen to
elevate him at the imperial court, for numberless vassals, whom, if
he chose, he might hunt to death with hounds.

"But true to his vow, full of the hope of being useful to his mother,
to science, and to humanity, the visionary renounced this paradise:
his mother blessed him on his long journey to a distant and unknown
land: she feared for him; yet she saw that Muscovy would be to him a
land of promise--and how could she oppose his wishes?"

Preceding our hero to Moscow, we are presented to the Great Prince before