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learn that it also, with its domes, which are like bulbs
and pine-apples, dentated and peeled fruits and buds, with
its towers in all forms and hues, was built by Italian
artists of the Renaissance,—then we unquestionably
wonder what the Russians themselves have done. But
it will also be noted that the Russians have compelled
the foreigner to work in their spirit or adopt and develop
the peculiar Russian style.
At the present time, the unlimited capacity of receiving
that which is foreign means scarcely anything else
than the intensified ability to fructify. It is this which,
among other things, becomes ardor, enthusiasm,
deification of genius, hero-worship.
All springs from the broadly constituted nature
(shirókaya natura). The Russians have an expression,
Chernozióm—the black earth, mould. They mean by it the
broad and deep belt of fertile soil, humus, which extends
from Podolia to Kazán and even across Urál into
Siberia. The wonderful fertility of this soil is ascribed to
the slow decay of the grass of the steppes, which has
been going on for centuries.
The richest and broadest Russian natures remind us
of this belt of rich soil. Even the circumstance that the
Russian nature has been lying fallow for hundreds of
years increases its wealth.
You occasionally meet a man or woman who exactly
embodies this Russian soil — a nature which is open,
rich, luxurious, receptive, warm without glow or heat,
but which gives the impression of inexhaustible
exuberance.
A foreigner who had delivered a course of lectures in
the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow, where the university
for women founded by Professor Guerrier and his
colleague was situated until it was recently closed,
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