Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow by Irina Reyfman (top 10 novels of all time .txt) 📕

After disturbing and mixing diverse layers, fire with its torrid breathing triggered in the primary metals the force of attraction and unified them. There Lomonosov saw these inherently inanimate treasures in their natural state, recalled the greed and misery of peoples and, with a broken heart, left this gloomy dwelling of human insatiability.

Applying himself to natural philosophy, he did not forsake the beloved study of poetry. Even in his homeland, an occasion showed him that Nature had designated him for greatness, that he would not wander along the ordinary pathway of human progress. The Psalter transposed by Simeon Polotsky into verse revealed to him a natural mystery about himself, showed that he, too, was a poet. When conversing with Horace, Virgil, and other ancient writers, he determined long ago that Russian versification was quite uncongenial to the euphony and graveness of our language. When reading German poets, he found that their style was more fluent than the Russian, that feet in poetic lines were distributed according to properties of their language. And so, he decided to attempt a composition in new verses, having first established rules for Russian poetry that were based on the euphony of our language.124 He implemented this by writing an ode on the Russian army’s victory over the Turks and Tatars and on the capture of Chocim, which he sent from Marburg to the Academy of Sciences. The singularity of its style, the power of expression, depictions that almost breathed, astonished those reading this new composition. And this firstborn child of an imagination propelled along an uncharted path, together with others, served to prove that once a people is directed toward perfection, it advances toward glory not along one trail, but along many pathways at the same time.

Force of imagination and lively sensation do not thwart scrutiny of detail. In providing examples of euphony, Lomonosov knew that elegance of style is based on rules intrinsic to the language. He wanted to extract them from the very language, not, however, ignoring that custom always provides the primary example of word combinations, and that expressions derived from a rule become correct through usage. By analyzing all parts of speech and coordinating them with usage, Lomonosov compiled his Grammar. But not contented only with teaching the rules of the Russian language, he also affords an idea about human speech in general as the most noble endowment after reason, given to man to communicate his thoughts. Here is a summary of his General Grammar: language represents thoughts; the instrument of language is voice; the voice is modified by formation or enunciation; various modifications in the voice express different ideas; therefore language is a depiction of our thoughts through the formation of voice by means of the organs designed to that end. Departing from this premise, Lomonosov defines as indivisible the parts of speech whose representations are called letters. The combination of these indivisible parts produces syllables, which apart from the distinction of their vocal formation, are further differentiated by stress, as it is called, which is the basis of versification. The joining of syllables produces root words, or the signifying parts of word. These represent either a thing or its action. The verbal representation of a thing is called a name; the representation of an action, a verb. Other parts of language function in the depiction of relations of things each to the other and connect them in conversation. But the first two are essential and can be called the principal parts of language, whereas the others can be considered auxiliary. In discussing different parts of speech, Lomonosov discovers that some of them are not fixed. A thing can occupy different positions in relation to other things. The representations of such positions and relations are called cases. Every action occurs in time; and, therefore, verbs are also arranged according to the times in order to represent the time in which the action takes place. Finally, Lomonosov speaks about a combination of parts of speech that produces speech.

Beginning with so philosophical a consideration of language in general, based on the very nature of our bodily constitution, Lomonosov sets out the rules of the Russian language. How could they be mediocre if the mind that sketched them was led through grammatical thickets by the torch of ingenuity? Do not scorn this praise, great man. Your Grammar alone did not build your fame among your fellow citizens. Your services to the Russian language are manifold; and in this unglamorous labor you are venerated as the first founder of the veritable rules of our language and as the explorer of the natural arrangement of every kind of word. Your Grammar is the antechamber of your Rhetoric, and both of them are guides to grasping the beauties of the way your creations are uttered. Proceeding to teach the rules, Lomonosov intended to guide his fellow citizens on the thorny paths of Helicon, showing them the road to eloquence by outlining the rules of rhetoric and poetry. But the brevity of his life allowed him to complete only half of the undertaken labor.

Born with tender feelings, endowed with a powerful imagination, prompted by love of honor, a man erupts from the milieu of the people. He ascends the Tribune. All eyes are on him, everyone waits impatiently for his oration. Applause or mockery bitterer than death itself awaits him. How could he be mediocre? Such a man was Demosthenes, such a man was Cicero; such was Pitt; such now are Burke, Fox, Mirabeau, and others.125 The rules of their speeches derive from circumstances, the sweetness of enunciation derives from their feelings, the power of arguments derives from their wit. Marveling at men so outstanding in the art of speech and analyzing their speeches, coolheaded critics thought that it was possible to outline rules for wit and imagination, thought that the path to enticement could be set out with laborious prescripts. Here is the origin of rhetoric. In following unwittingly his imagination, improved as it was by