by the laws, could give a salutary direction to public affairs; but they all fly the elections like a plague, leaving them in the hands of intriguing schemers.  The most wealthy land-owners lounge on the Nevsky-perspective, or travel abroad, and but seldom visit their estates.  For them elections are—­a caricature:  they amuse themselves over the bald head of the sheriff or the thick belly of the president of the court of assizes, and they forget that to them is intrusted not only their own actual welfare and that of their peasantry, but their entire future destiny.  Yes, thus it is!  Had we not taken such a mischievous course, were we not so unpardonably thoughtless, how grand would have been the vocation of the Russian noble, to lead the whole nation forward on the path of genuine civilization!  I repeat again, it is our own fault.  Instead of being useful to their country, what has become of the Russian nobility?”

“They have ruined themselves,” emphatically interrupted Vassily Ivanovitsch.—­The Tarantas:  or Impressions of Young Russia.