text:  She boasts of men to whom she is grateful for having adorned her young literature with the creations of their genius or who have made her history attractive with the allurements of faithful fiction giving life and flesh and blood to its dry bones; and yet gentle reader learned or fair--or both fair and learned--whether sombre in small clothes or brilliant in _bas-bleus_--how many could you have named a year ago of those names which are the pride and delight of a great European nation with which we have had an intimate friendly and beneficial intercourse for three consecutive centuries and whose capital has now for some years been easily accessible in ten days from our own? Surely it is somewhat strange that while Russia fills so large a space not only on the map but in the politics of the world--while the influence of her active mind and of her powerful muscle is felt and acknowledged in Europe Asia and America--that we who come in contact with her diplomatic skill and her intelligence at every turn and in every quarter should never have thought it worth while to take any note of her literature--of the more attractive movements of her mind