That which is aptly uttered is the same as that which is written down: there’s no chopping it out with an axe. Indeed, how very apt is everything that has emerged from the depths of Rus, where there are neither Germans, nor Finns, nor any other sort of tribe, but where everything is home-grown, where the living and lively Russian mind, which is never at a loss for a word and does not hatch it the way a brood-hen does her young, but just goes ahead and slaps it on, like a passport to be carried forever, and there’s no point in later trying to add the kind of nose or lips you have – with a
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