Rudin

epoch anterior to that when the present social and political movements began. This epoch is being fast forgotten, and without his no

it with its narrow conceptions. But this was not the worst. The worst was that progressive Russia was represented by a mere handful of men, who were so immensely in advan

unable to take part in the sordid or petty pursuits of those around them,

een an informal club and a debating society, became the form in which these cravings of mind

efers to a circle of young students. But it has a wider application. All prominent men of the epoch - Stankevitch, who served as model to the poetic and touching figure of Pokorsky; Alexan

materialism. But by living in that spiritual hothouse of dreams, philosophical speculations, and abstractions, these men unfitted themselves only the more completely for participation in real life; the absorption in interests having nothing to do wi

His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his eloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an absorbing passion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more rare, he would not swerve a hair's-breadth from them for any worldly advantage, or for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm spring with him entirely

ns. A poor substitute for the bountiful sun. But what would have become of a God-forsaken land if the Arctic nights were deprived of that substitute? With all their weaknesses, Rudin and the men of his stamp - in other words, the men of the generation

oil. They hardly knew the Russian people, who appeared to them as nothing more than an historic abstraction. They were really cosmopolitan

r from it, unfortunately. There are still thousands of barriers preventing the Russians from doing something useful for their countrymen and mixing freely wit

in's type, which acquires mor

flattering opinion has been humbly indorsed and repeated since, out of reverence to Gogol's great authority, although it is untrue on the face of it. Hlestakov is a sort of Tartarin in Russian dress, whilst si

genev's gallery, and it is at the same time one of

r. He has more colour, a deeper perspective, a greater variety of lights and shadows - a more complete portraiture of the spiritual man. Tolstoi's people stand so living and concrete that one feels

up new deep horizons, throwing upon

highest this subtle psychological many-sidedness. Dmitri Rudin is built up of contradi

resh to all impressions of life, and as yet undeveloped. To have used the searching, analytical method in painting her would have spoiled this beautiful creation. Turgenev describe

masculine than that of the men of their time. By the side of weak, irresolute, though highly intellectual men we see in his first three novels energetic, earnest, impassioned women, who take the lead in action, whilst they are but the man's modest pupils in the domain of ideas. Only later on

us: Lezhnyov, Pigasov, Madame Lasunsky, Pandalevsky, who are

ke here only one observation, not to

descriptions are never overburdened with wearisome details; his action is rapid; the events are never to be foreseen a hundred pages beforehand; he keeps his readers in constant suspense. And it seems to me in so doing he shows himself a better realist than the gifted representati

deed, any of Turgenev's great novels. What the novelists of the romantic school obtain by the charm of unexpected adventures and thrilling situations, Turgenev succeeds in obtaining by the brisk admirably concentrated action, and, above all, by the simplest and most precious of a novelist's gifts: his unique command over

al language. The poet Lermontov alone wrote as splendid a prose as Turgenev. A good deal of its charm is unavoidably lost in translation

tepn

pril 20, 1894.<