It is a rather curious thing, that Russia, which has never had a
parliamentary government, and where political history has been very
little influenced by the spoken word, should have so much finer an
instrument of expression than England, where matters of the greatest
importance have been settled by open and public speech for nearly
three hundred years. One would think that the constant use of the
language in the national forum for purposes of argument and persuasion
would help to make it flexible and subtle; and that the almost total
absence of such employment would tend toward narrowness and rigidity.
In this instance exactly the contrary is the case. If we may trust the
testimony of those who know, we are forced to the conclusion that the
English language, compared with the Russian, is nothing but an awkward
dialect. Compared with Russian, the English language is decidedly weak
in synonyms, and in the various shades of meaning that make for
precision. Indeed, with the exception of Polish, Russian is probably
the greatest language in the world, in richness, variety,
definiteness, and elegance. It is also capable of saying much in
little, and saying it with tremendous force. In Turgenev's "Torrents
of Spring," where the reader hears constantly phrases in Italian,
French, and German, it will be remembered that the ladies ask Sanin to
sing something in his mother tongue. "The ladies praised his voice and
the music, but were more struck with the softness and sonorousness of
the Russian language." I remember being similarly affected years ago
when I heard "King Lear" read aloud in Russian. Baron von der Bruggen
says,* "there is the wonderful wealth of the language, which, as a
popular tongue, is more flexible, more expressive of thought than any
other living tongue I know of." No one has paid a better tribute than
Gogol:--

"The Russian people express themselves forcibly; and if they once