Since Mr. Duncan chose to comment on my signature quote TO THE ENTIRE LIST, please allow me a single and brief reply. His comment was: >What a load of Russia bashing and with no flicker of truth. I use this quote (and others like it) to illustrate a characteristic of Russian society and culture which I have observed to be true in history and in our own time. If Edward Clarke overstated his observation we can't really blame him: travelling in Russia, one is sometimes too much inclined to see things in stark terms. At least he was more generous than Baron Von Haxthausen in 1856 who wrote: "Nowhere are the dangers which accompany our modern civilization so evident as among the Russians. In the educated classes there are many who have acquired the highest European culture; they may be judged according to the proverb, -- 'Half philosophy draws a man away from God; perfect philosophy conducts man to God'; when half-culture touches a Russian he is ruined; it is said that when he shaves off his beard, lays aside the kaftan, and puts on a European coat, he becomes a knave. The Russians who have acquired the usual West-European cultivation are called lackered barbarians; this is inaccurate; they are no barbarians, but a healthy, vigorous, intellectual people, of noble race, religious and moral; if however they are brought suddenly into contact with and receive taint of modern culture, their natural virtues vanish, their religion and morals, simplicity and honesty are destroyed, and nothing remains but the animal nature common to man. The Russian however then becomes worse than those who bear the poison of civilization more easily, from its having been longer united with their existing manners." My apologies for taking up your time, W. M. Reger IV sans signature W. M. Reger IV : [log in to unmask]