All St. Petersburg was in extasy some months ago at an anecdote that ran the round of the court, and was cited everywhere as the very climax of moral perfection. It was this. A young lady in one of the first Institutes of that city, whose brother had been slain at Kalafat by the Turks, received one morning the news of his death. On its being communicated to her she smiled and said that she was “rejoiced to hear it, as he had died for the Emperor.” A sentiment so elevated and noble was of course repeated to imperial ears, and the pseudo-Spartan damsel was handsomely rewarded by a splendid dowry, and the assurance that her future fortune should be cared for. “Pour encourager les autres,” as Voltaire said on another occasion. When such encouragements are given to youth of both sexes, and what we should consider as a vice is held up as the highest point of excellence, and inculcated from the earliest age, when the heart can be moulded to any form, it would be worse than useless to expect a just sense of moral independence, nobility of soul, or true sentiments on liberty, from men and women so educated. To do the Russians justice, they have “minded what their teachers said,” and have perfected themselves in the lesson, for, notwithstanding many good natural qualities which they undeniably possess, I think it would be impossible to find in any country so much baseness, deceit, and hypocrisy as are to be met with every day in Russia, and especially in the capital. One of the greatest punishments to the nobility is the being banished from St. Petersburg and from the light of the Emperor’s countenance. I remember, a few years ago, when four ladies of rank, one of whom was, they say, a Countess O——f, thought proper to go to a masquerade and afterwards to a restaurant, where they all became “tellement ivres” that they were taken home by the police on droshskies. Two of them were exiled to their estates for five years, and it was remarked, _par les mauvaises langues_, that his Majesty had shown his usual discrimination, for the two who were endowed with pretty faces were allowed to remain in the capital (where I believe they are still an _ornament_ to his court), and the others were sent away.