THE SPIRIT OF RUSSIA
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humanity in one of the most thorough and most profound philosophical works ever written; but he never got beyond the preface, and even this was not completed. Others of Herzen's friends besides Ogarev are figured in Beltov. Herzen considered that Stankevič, for example, was one of those who had achieved nothing In a sense and to a degree Herzen limns himself, too, in Beltov. It is true that Beltov is only a caricature of Herzen, but the best portraits are really caricatures.
These considerations must not discredit the true and living interest which Herzen took in all the questions that stirred his time, the interest he took in all that was human. Herzen's many-sided interests converged in a single direction, upon a single object—Russia.
