text:  The foreigner may enjoy during a visit of the usual duration the hospitality for which the higher classes are so justly celebrated; but his association with the nobility will be found an absolute obstacle to the making even a trifling progress in the Russian language; which though now regaining a degree of attention from the elevated classes [1] too long denied to it by those with whom their native tongue _was_ an unfashionable one--he would have no occasion at all to speak and not even very frequent opportunities of hearing