The R's looked the wrong way, the L's stood bottom upward, H's became N's, and C's were S's, and lower case and small caps were generally mixed up.
The perplexities of Russian youth must be greater than ours, as they have thirty-six letters in their alphabet and every one of them must be learned.

A brief study of Slavonic verbs and nouns convinced me they could never be acquired grammatically in the short time I proposed remaining in Russia, and so I gave them up.
What a hindrance to a traveler and literal man of the world is this confusion of tongues! There is no human being who can make himself verbally understood everywhere on this little globe.

In the Russian empire alone there are more than a hundred spoken languages and dialects.

The emperor, with all his erudition, has many subjects with whom he is unable to converse.

What a misfortune to mankind that the Tower of Babel was ever commenced! The architect who planned it should receive the execration of all posterity.
The apartment I occupied was of goodly size, and contained a large writing desk.