A Journey Due North: Being Notes of a Residence in Russia
By . Boston: Ticknor & Fields 16mo.
ALTHOUGH the matter of this brilliant volume is of intrinsic interest, its charm is due more to the mode of description than even to the things described. It gives us Russia from a Bohemian point of view. The characteristics of Mr. Sala are keen observation, vivid description, lively wit, indomitable assurance, and incapacity of being surprised. To his resolute belief in himself, in what he sees with his own eyes and conceives with his own brain, the book owes much of its raciness, its confident, decisive, “knowing” tone, its independence of the judgments of others, and its freedom from all the deceptions which proceed from such emotions as wonder and admiration. The volume is read with a pleasure similar to that we experience in listening to the animated talk of an acquaintance fresh from novel scenes of foreign travel, who reproduces his whole experience in recalling his adventures, and gives us not merely incidents and pictures, but his own feelings of delight and self-elation.
The three introductory chapters, describing the journey to St. Petersburg, are perhaps the most brilliant portion of the book. The delineations of his fellowpassengers, in the voyage from Stettin to Cronstadt, especially the portraits of the swearing Captain Smith and the accomplished Russian noble, are admirable equally for their humor and their sagacity. The account of the landing at Cronstadt, the scenes at the Custom-House, the author’s first walk in St. Petersburg, and his first drive in a droschky, are masterpieces of familiar narration, and fairly convert the readers of his book into companions of his journey. The description of the manners and customs of the Russian people, the shrewd occasional comments on the policy of the government, and the thorough analysis of the rascality of the Russian police, are admirable in substance, if somewhat flippant in expression. In power of holding the amused attention of the reader, equally by the pertinence of the matter and the impertinence of the tone, the volume is unexcelled by any other book on the subject of Russia.