not for what it destroys, but for what it vivifies and creates.

I cannot say that it was much to my credit that, while I thought the
Regent's condescension towards me natural enough, I was a little
surprised by the favour shown me by the Czar. At Paris, I had /seemed/
to be the man of pleasure: that alone was enough to charm Philip of
Orleans. But in Russia, what could I seem in any way calculated to
charm the Czar? I could neither make ships nor could sail them when
they were made; I neither knew, nor, what was worse, cared to know, the
stern from the rudder. Mechanics were a mystery to me; road-making was
an incomprehensible science. Brandy I could not endure; a blunt bearing
and familiar manner I could not assume. What was it, then, that made
the Czar call upon me, at least twice a week in private, shut himself up
with me by the hour together, and endeavour to make me drunk with Tokay,
in order (as he very incautiously let out one night), "to learn the
secrets of my heart"? I thought, at first, that the nature of my
mission was enough to solve the riddle: but we talked so little about it
that, with all my diplomatic vanities fresh about me, I could not help
feeling I owed the honour I received less to my qualities as a minister
than to those as an individual.

At last, however, I found that the secret attraction was what the Czar
termed the philosophical channel into which our conferences flowed. I
never saw a man so partial to moral problems and metaphysical inquiries,
especially to those connected with what ought to be the beginning or the
end of all moral sciences,--politics. Sometimes we would wander out in
disguise, and select some object from the customs or things around us,
as the theme of reflection and discussion; nor in these moments would
the Czar ever allow me to yield to his rank what I might not feel
disposed to concede to his arguments. One day, I remember that he