Essays on Russian Novelists/Russian National Character

by William Lyon Phelps

I

RUSSIAN NATIONAL CHARACTER AS
SHOWN IN RUSSIAN FICTION

The Japanese war pricked one of the biggest bubbles in history, and left Russia in a profoundly humiliating situation. Her navy was practically destroyed, her armies soundly beaten, her offensive power temporarily reduced to zero, her treasury exhausted, her pride laid in the dust. If the greatness of a nation consisted in the number and size of its battleships, in the capacity of its fighting men, or in its financial prosperity, Russia would be an object of pity. But in America it is wholesome to remember that the real greatness of a nation consists in none of these things, but rather in its intellectual splendour, in the number and importance of the ideas it gives to the world, in its contributions to literature and art, and to all things that count in humanity's intellectual advance. When we Americans swell with pride over our industrial prosperity, we might profitably reflect for a moment on the comparative value of America's and Russia's contributions to literature and music.

At the start, we notice a rather curious fact, which sharply differentiates Russian literature from the literature of England, France, Spain, Italy, and even from that of Germany. Russia is old; her literature is new. Russian history goes back to the ninth century; Russian literature, so far as it interests the world, begins in the nineteenth. Russian literature and American literature are twins. But there is this strong contrast, caused partly by the difference in the age of the two nations. In the early years of the nineteenth century, American literature sounds like a child learning to talk, and then aping its elders; Russian literature is the voice of a giant, waking from a long sleep, and becoming articulate. It is as though the world had watched this giant's deep slumber for a long time, wondering what he would say when he awakened. And what he has said has been well worth the thousand years of waiting.

To an educated native Slav, or to a professor of the Russian language, twenty or thirty Russian authors would no doubt seem important; but the general foreign reading public is quite properly mainly interested in only five standard writers, although contemporary novelists like Gorki, Artsybashev, Andreev, and others are at this moment deservedly attracting wide attention. The great five, whose place in the world's literature seems absolutely secure, are Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Tolstoi. The man who killed Pushkin in a duel survived till 1895, and Tolstoi died in 1910. These figures show in how short a time Russian literature has had its origin, development, and full fruition.

Pushkin, who was born in 1799 and died in 1838, is the founder of Russian literature, and it is difficult to overestimate his influence. He is the first, and still the most generally beloved, of all their national poets. The wild enthusiasm that greeted his verse has never passed away, and he has generally been regarded in Russia as one of the great poets of the world. Yet Matthew Arnold announced in his Olympian manner, "The Russians have not yet had a great poet."^[1] It is always difficult fully to appreciate poetry in a foreign language, especially when the language is so strange as Russian. It is certain that no modern European tongue has been able fairly to represent the beauty of Pushkin's verse, to make foreigners feel him as Russians feel him, in any such measure as the Germans succeeded with Shakespeare, as Bayard Taylor with Goethe, as Ludwig Fulda with Rostand. The translations of Pushkin and of Lermontov have never impressed foreign readers in the superlative degree. The glory of English literature is its poetry; the glory of Russian literature is its prose fiction.

Pushkin was, for a time at any rate, a Romantic, largely influenced, as all the world was then, by Byron. He is full of sentiment, smiles and tears, and passionate enthusiasms. He therefore struck out in a path in which he has had no great followers; for the big men in Russian literature are all Realists. Romanticism is as foreign to the spirit of Russian Realism as it is to French Classicism. What is peculiarly Slavonic about Pushkin is his simplicity, his naïveté. Though affected by foreign models, he was close to the soil. This is shown particularly in his prose tales, and it is here that his title as Founder of Russian Literature is most clearly demonstrated. He took Russia away from the artificiality of the eighteenth century, and exhibited the possibilities of native material in the native tongue.

The founder of the mighty school of Russian Realism was Gogol. Filled with enthusiasm for Pushkin, he nevertheless took a different course, and became Russia's first great novelist. Furthermore, although a melancholy man, he is the only Russian humorist who has made the world laugh out loud. Humour is not a salient quality in Russian fiction. Then came the brilliant follower of Gogol, Ivan Turgenev. In him Russian literary art reached its climax, and the art of the modern novel as well. He is not only the greatest master of prose style that Russia has ever produced; he is the only Russian who has shown genius in Construction. Perhaps no novels in any language have shown the impeccable beauty of form attained in the works of Turgenev. George Moore queries, "Is not Turgenev the greatest artist that has existed since antiquity?"

Dostoevski, seven years older than Tolstoi, and three years younger than Turgenev, was not so much a Realist as a Naturalist; his chief interest was in the psychological processes of the unclassed. His foreign fame is constantly growing brighter, for his works have an extraordinary vitality. Finally appeared Leo Tolstoi, whose literary career extended nearly sixty years. During the last twenty years of his life, he was generally regarded as the world's greatest living author; his books enjoyed an enormous circulation, and he probably influenced more individuals by his pen than any other man of his time.

In the novels of Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Tolstoi we ought to find all the prominent traits in the Russian character.

It is a rather curious thing, that Russia, which has never had a parliamentary government, and where political history has been very little influenced by the spoken word, should have so much finer an instrument of expression than England, where matters of the greatest importance have been settled by open and public speech for nearly three hundred years. One would think that the constant use of the language in the national forum for purposes of argument and persuasion would help to make it flexible and subtle; and that the almost total absence of such employment would tend toward narrowness and rigidity. In this instance exactly the contrary is the case. If we may trust the testimony of those who know, we are forced to the conclusion that the English language, compared with the Russian, is nothing but an awkward dialect. Compared with Russian, the English language is decidedly weak in synonyms, and in the various shades of meaning that make for precision. Indeed, with the exception of Polish, Russian is probably the greatest language in the world, in richness, variety, definiteness, and elegance. It is also capable of saying much in little, and saying it with tremendous force. In Turgenev's Torrents of Spring, where the reader hears constantly phrases in Italian, French, and German, it will be remembered that the ladies ask Sanin to sing something in his mother tongue. "The ladies praised his voice and the music, but were more struck with the softness and sonorousness of the Russian language." I remember being similarly affected years ago when I heard King Lear read aloud in Russian. Baron von der Brüggen says,^[2] "there is the wonderful wealth of the language, which, as a popular tongue, is more flexible, more expressive of thought than any other living tongue I know of." No one has paid a better tribute than Gogol:—

"The Russian people express themselves forcibly; and if they once bestow an epithet upon a person, it will descend to his race and posterity; he will bear it about with him, in service, in retreat, in Petersburg, and to the ends of the earth; and use what cunning he will, ennoble his career as he will thereafter, nothing is of the slightest use; that nickname will caw of itself at the top of its crow's voice, and will show clearly whence the bird has flown. A pointed epithet once uttered is the same as though it were written down, and an axe will not cut it out.

"And how pointed is all that which has proceeded from the depths of Russia, where there are neither Germans nor Finns, nor any other strange tribes, but where all is purely aboriginal, where the bold and lively Russian mind never dives into its pocket for a word, and never broods over it like a sitting-hen: it sticks the word on at one blow, like a passport, like your nose or lips on an eternal bearer, and never adds anything afterwards. You are sketched from head to foot in one stroke.

"Innumerable as is the multitude of churches, monasteries with cupolas, towers, and crosses, which are scattered over holy, most pious Russia, the multitude of tribes, races, and peoples who throng and bustle and variegate the earth is just as innumerable. And every people bearing within itself the pledge of strength, full of active qualities of soul, of its own sharply denned peculiarities, and other gifts of God, has characteristically distinguished itself by its own special word, by which, while expressing any object whatever, it also reflects in the expression its own share of its own distinctive character. The word Briton echoes with knowledge of the heart, and wise knowledge of life; the word French, which is not of ancient date, glitters with a light foppery, and flits away; the sagely artistic word German ingeniously discovers its meaning, which is not attainable by every one; but there is no word which is so ready, so audacious, which is torn from beneath the heart itself, which is so burning, so full of life, as the aptly applied Russian word."^[3]

Prosper Merimée, who knew Russian well, and was an absolute master of the French language, remarked:

"La langue russe, qui est, autant que j'en puis juger, le plus riche des idiomes de l'Europe, semble faite pour exprimer les nuances les plus delicates. Douée d'une merveilleuse concision qui s'allie à la clarté, il lui suffit d'un mot pour associer plusieurs idées, qui, dans une autre langue, exigeraient des phrases entières."

And no people are more jealous on this very point than the French. In the last of his wonderful Poems in Prose, Turgenev cried out: "In these days of doubt, in these days of painful brooding over the fate of my country, thou alone art my rod and my staff, O great, mighty, true and free Russian language! If it were not for thee, how could one keep from despairing at the sight of what is going on at home? But it is inconceivable that such a language should not belong to a great people."

It is significant that Turgenev, who was so full of sympathy for the ideas and civilization of Western Europe, and who was so often regarded (unjustly) by his countrymen as a traitor to Russia, should have written all his masterpieces, not in French, of which he had a perfect command, but in his own beloved mother-tongue.

We see by the above extracts, that Russia has an instrument of expression as near perfection as is possible in human speech. Perhaps one reason for the supremacy of Russian fiction may be found here.

The immense size of the country produces an element of largeness in Russian character that one feels not only in their novels, but almost invariably in personal contact and conversation with a more or less educated Russian. This is not imaginary and fantastic; it is a definite sensation, and immediately apparent. Bigness in early environment often produces a certain comfortable largeness of mental vision. One has only to compare in this particular a man from Russia with a man from Holland, or still better, a man from Texas with a man from Connecticut. The difference is easy to see, and easier to feel. It is possible that the man from the smaller district may be more subtle, or he may have had better educational advantages; but he is likely to be more narrow. A Texan told me once that it was eighteen miles from his front door to his front gate; now I was born in a city block, with no front yard at all. I had surely missed something.

Russians are moulded on a large scale, and their novels are as wide in interest as the world itself. There is a refreshing breadth of vision in the Russian character, which is often as healthful to a foreigner as the wind that sweeps across the vast prairies. This largeness of character partly accounts for the impression of Vastness that their books produce on Occidental eyes. I do not refer at all to the length of the book for a book may be very long, and yet produce an impression of pettiness, like many English novels. No, it is something that exhales from the pages, whether they be few or many. As illustrations of this quality of vastness, one has only to recall two Russian novels--one the longest, and the other very nearly the shortest, in the whole range of Slavonic fiction. I refer to War and Peace, by Tolstoi, and to Taras Bulba, by Gogol. Both of these extraordinary works give us chiefly an impression of Immensity--we feel the boundless steppes, the illimitable wastes of snow, and the long winter night. It is particularly interesting to compare Taras Bulba with the trilogy of the Polish genius, Sienkiewicz. The former is tiny in size, the latter a leviathan; but the effect produced is the same. It is what we feel in reading Homer, whose influence, by the way, is as powerful in Taras Bulba as it is in With Fire and Sword.

The Cosmopolitanism of the Russian character is a striking feature. Indeed, the educated Russian is perhaps the most complete Cosmopolitan in the world. This is partly owing to the uncanny facility with which he acquires foreign languages, and to the admirable custom in Russia of giving children in more or less wealthy families, French, German, and English governesses. John Stuart Mill studied Greek at the age of three, which is the proper time to begin the study of any language that one intends to master. Russian children think and dream in foreign words, but it is seldom that a Russian shows any pride in his linguistic accomplishments, or that he takes it otherwise than as a matter of course. Stevenson, writing from Mentone to his mother, 7 January 1874, said: "We have two little Russian girls, with the youngest of whom, a little polyglot button of a three-year-old, I had the most laughable little scene at lunch to-day.... She said something in Italian which made everybody laugh very much...; after some examination, she announced emphatically to the whole table, in German, that I was a mädchen.... This hasty conclusion as to my sex she was led afterwards to revise...but her new opinion...was announced in a language quite unknown to me, and probably Russian. To complete the scroll of her accomplishments,... she said good-bye to me in very commendable English." Three days later, he added, "The little Russian kid is only two and a half; she speaks six languages." Nothing excites the envy of an American travelling in Europe more sharply than to hear Russian men and women speaking European languages fluently and idiomatically. When we learn to speak a foreign tongue, we are always acutely conscious of the transition from English to German, or from German to French, and our hearers are still more so. We speak French as though it hurt, just as the average tenor sings. I remember at a polyglot Parisian table, a Russian girl who spoke seven languages with perfect ease; and she was not in the least a blue-stocking.

Now every one knows that one of the indirect advantages that result from the acquisition of a strange tongue is the immediate gain in the extent of view. It is as though a near-sighted man had suddenly put on glasses. It is something to be able to read French; but if one has learned to speak French, the reading of a French book becomes infinitely more vivid. With a French play in the hand, one can see clearly the expressions on the faces of the personages, as one follows the printed dialogue with the eye. Here is where a Russian understands the American or the French point of view, much better than an American or a Frenchman understands the Russian's. Indeed, the man from Paris is nothing like so cosmopolitan as the man from Petersburg. One reason is, that he is too well satisfied with Paris. The late M. Brunetiere told me that he could neither read or speak English, and, what is still more remarkable, he said that he had never been in England! That a critic of his power and reputation, interested as he was in English literature, should never have had sufficient intellectual curiosity to cross the English Channel, struck me as nothing short of amazing. The acquisition of any foreign language annihilates a considerable number of prejudices. Henry James, who knew Turgenev intimately, and who has written a brilliant and charming essay on his personality, said that the mind of Turgenev contained not one pin-point of prejudice. It is worth while to pause an instant and meditate on the significance of such a remark. Think what it must mean to view the world, the institutions of society, moral ideas, and human character with an absolutely unprejudiced mind! We Americans are skinful of prejudices. Of course we don't call them prejudices; we call them principles. But they sometimes impress others as prejudices; and they no doubt help to obscure our judgment, and to shorten or refract our sight. What would be thought of a painter who had prejudices concerning the colours of skies and fields? The cosmopolitanism of the Russian novelist partly accounts for the international effect and influence of his novels. His knowledge of foreign languages makes his books appeal to foreign readers. When he introduces German, French, English, and Italian characters into his books, he not only understands these people, he can think in their languages, and thus reproduce faithfully their characteristics not merely by observation but by sympathetic intuition. Furthermore, the very fact that Tolstoi, for example, writes in an inaccessible language, makes foreign translations of his works absolutely necessary. As at the day of Pentecost, every man hears him speak in his own tongue. Now if an Englishman writes a successful book, thousands of Russians, Germans, and others will read it in English; the necessity of translation is not nearly so great. It is interesting to compare the world-wide appeal made by the novels of Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Tolstoi with that made by Thackeray and George Eliot, not to mention Mr. Hardy or the late Mr. Meredith.

The combination of the great age of Russia with its recent intellectual birth produces a maturity of character, with a wonderful freshness of consciousness. It is as though a strong, sensible man of forty should suddenly develop a genius in art; his attitude would be quite different from that of a growing boy, no matter how precocious he might be. So, while the Russian character is marked by an extreme sensitiveness to mental impressions, it is without the rawness and immaturity of the American. The typical American has some strong qualities that seem in the typical Russian conspicuously absent; but his very practical energy, his pride and self-satisfaction, stand in the way of his receptive power. Now a conspicuous trait of the Russian is his humility; and his humility enables him to see clearly what is going on, where an American would instantly interfere, and attempt to change the course of events.^[4] For, however inspiring a full-blooded American may be, the most distinguishing feature of his character is surely not Humility. And it is worth while to remember that whereas since 1850, at least a dozen great realistic novels have been written in Russian, not a single completely great realistic novel has ever been written in the Western Hemisphere.

This extreme sensitiveness to impression is what has led the Russian literary genius into Realism; and it is what has produced the greatest Realists that the history of the novel has seen. The Russian mind is like a sensitive plate; it reproduces faithfully. It has no more partiality, no more prejudice than a camera film; it reflects everything that reaches its surface. A Russian novelist, with a pen in his hand, is the most truthful being on earth.

To an Englishman or an American, perhaps the most striking trait in the Russian character is his lack of practical force--the paralysis of his power of will. The national character among the educated classes is personified in fiction, in a type peculiarly Russian; and that may be best defined by calling it the conventional Hamlet. I say the conventional Hamlet, for I believe Shakespeare's Hamlet is a man of immense resolution and self-control. The Hamlet of the commentators is as unlike Shakespeare's Hamlet as systematic theology is unlike the Sermon on the Mount. The hero of the orthodox Russian novel is a veritable L'Aiglon. This national type must be clearly understood before an American can understand Russian novels at all. In order to show that it is not imaginary, but real, one has only to turn to Sienkiewicz's powerful work, Without Dogma, the very title expressing the lack of conviction that destroys the hero. "Last night, at Count Malatesta's reception, I heard by chance these two words, 'l'improductivité slave.' I experienced the same relief as does a nervous patient when the physician tells him that his symptoms are common enough, and that many others suffer from the same disease.... I thought about that 'improductivité slave' all night. He had his wits about him who summed the thing up in these two words. There is something in us, --an incapacity to give forth all that is in us. One might say, God has given us bow and arrow, but refused us the power to string the bow and send the arrow straight to its aim. I should like to discuss it with my father, but am afraid to touch a sore point. Instead of this, I will discuss it with my diary. Perhaps it will be just the thing to give it any value. Besides, what can be more natural than to write about what interests me? Everybody carries within him his tragedy. Mine is this same 'improductivité slave' of the Ploszowskis. Not long ago, when romanticism flourished in hearts and poetry, everybody carried his tragedy draped around him as a picturesque cloak; now it is carried still, but as a jägervest next to the skin. But with a diary it is different; with a diary one may be sincere.... To begin with, I note down that my religious belief I carried still intact with me from Metz did not withstand the study of natural philosophy. It does not follow that I am an atheist. Oh, no! this was good enough in former times, when he who did not believe in spirit, said to himself, 'Matter,' and that settled for him the question. Nowadays only provincial philosophers cling to that worn-out creed. Philosophy of our times does not pronounce upon the matter; to all such questions, it says, 'I do not know.' And that 'I do not know' sinks into and permeates the mind. Nowadays psychology occupies itself with close analysis and researches of spiritual manifestations; but when questioned upon the immortality of the soul it says the same, 'I do not know,' and truly it does not know, and it cannot know. And now it will be easier to describe the state of my mind. It all lies in these words: I do not know. In this--in the acknowledged impotence of the human mind--lies the tragedy. Not to mention the fact that humanity always has asked, and always will ask, for an answer, they are truly questions of more importance than anything else in the world. If there be something on the other side, and that something an eternal life, then misfortunes and losses on this side are as nothing. 'I am content to die,' says Renan, 'but I should like to know whether death will be of any use to me.' And philosophy replies, 'I do not know.' And man beats against that blank wall, and like the bedridden sufferer fancies, if he could lie on this or on that side, he would feel easier. What is to be done?"^[5]

Those last five words are often heard in Russian mouths. It is a favourite question. It is, indeed, the title of two Russian books.

The description of the Slavonic temperament given by Sienkiewicz tallies exactly with many prominent characters in Russian novels. Turgenev first completely realised it in Rudin; he afterwards made it equally clear in Torrents of Spring, Smoke, and other novels.^[6] Raskolnikov, in Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment, is another illustration; he wishes to be a Napoleon, and succeeds only in murdering two old women. Artsybashev, in his terrible novel, Sanin, has given an admirable analysis of this great Russian type in the character of Jurii, who finally commits suicide simply because he cannot find a working theory of life. Writers so different as Tolstoi and Gorki have given plenty of good examples. Indeed, Gorki, in Varenka Olessova, has put into the mouth of a sensible girl an excellent sketch of the national representative.

"The Russian hero is always silly and stupid, he is always sick of something; always thinking of something that cannot be understood, and is himself so miserable, so m--i--serable! He will think, think, then talk, then he will go and make a declaration of love, and after that he thinks, and thinks again, till he marries.... And when he is married, he talks all sorts of nonsense to his wife, and then abandons her."

Turgenev's Bazarov and Artsybashev's Sanin indicate the ardent revolt against the national masculine temperament; like true Slavs, they go clear to the other extreme, and bring resolution to a reductio ad absurdum; for your true Russian knows no middle course, being entirely without the healthy moderation of the Anglo-Saxon. The great Turgenev realised his own likeness to Rudin. Mrs. Ritchie has given a very pleasant unconscious testimony to this fact.

"Just then my glance fell upon Turgenev^[7] leaning against the doorpost at the far end of the room, and as I looked, I was struck, being shortsighted, by a certain resemblance to my father [Thackeray], which I tried to realise to myself. He was very tall, his hair was grey and abundant, his attitude was quiet and reposeful; I looked again and again while I pictured to myself the likeness. When Turgenev came up after the music, he spoke to us with great kindness, spoke of our father, and of having dined at our house, and he promised kindly and willingly to come and call next day upon my sister and me in Onslow Gardens. I can remember that next day still; dull and dark, with a yellow mist in the air. All the afternoon I sat hoping and expecting that Turgenev might come, but I waited in vain. Two days later, we met him again at Mrs. Huth's, where we were all once more assembled. Mr. Turgenev came straight up to me at once. 'I was so sorry that I could not come and see you,' he said, ' so very sorry, but I was prevented. Look at my thumbs! ' and he held up both his hands with the palms outwards. I looked at his thumbs, but I could not understand. 'See how small they are,' he went on; 'people with such little thumbs can never do what they intend to do, they always let themselves be prevented;' and he laughed so kindly that I felt as if his visit had been paid all the time and quite understood the validity of the excuse." ^[8]

It is seldom that the national characteristic reveals itself so playfully; it is more likely to lead to tragedy. This cardinal fact may militate greatly against Russia's position as a world-power in the future, as it has in the past. Her capacity for passive resistance is enormous--Napoleon learned that, and so did Frederick. A remarkable illustration of it was afforded by the late Japanese war, when Port Arthur held out long after the possible date assigned by many military experts. For positive aggressive tactics Russia is just as weak nationally as her men are individually. What a case in point is the Duma, of which so much was expected ! Were a majority of that Duma Anglo-Saxons, we should all see something happen, and it would not happen against Finland. One has only to compare it with the great parliamentary gatherings in England's history. ^[9]

Perhaps if the membership were exclusively composed of women, positive results would show. For, in Russian novels, the irresolution of the men is equalled only by the driving force of the women. The Russian feminine type, as depicted in fiction, is the incarnation of singleness of purpose, and a capacity to bring things to pass, whether for good or for evil. The heroine of Rudin, of Smoke, of On the Eve, the sinister Maria of Torrents of Spring, the immortal Lisa of A House of Gentlefolk, the girl in Dostoevski's Poor Folk; Dunia and Sonia, in Crime and Punishment--many others might be called to mind. The good Russian women seem immensely superior to the men in their instant perception and recognition of moral values, which gives them a chart and compass in life. Possibly, too, the women are stiffened in will by a natural reaction in finding their husbands and brothers so stuffed with inconclusive theories. One is appalled at the prodigious amount of nonsense that Russian wives and daughters are forced to hear from their talkative and ineffective heads of houses. It must be worse than the metaphysical discussion between Adam and the angel, while Eve waited on table, and supplied the windy debaters with something really useful.

To one who is well acquainted with American university undergraduates, the intellectual maturity of the Russian or Polish student and his eagerness for the discussion of abstract problems in sociology and metaphysics are very impressive. The amount of space given in Russian novels to philosophical introspection and debate is a truthful portrayal of the subtle Russian mind. Russians love to talk; they are strenuous in conversation, and forget their meals and their sleep. I have known some Russians who will sit up all night, engaged in the discussion of a purely abstract topic, totally oblivious to the passage of time. In A House of Gentlefolk, at four o'clock in the morning, Mihalevich is still talking about the social duties of Russian landowners, and he roars out, "We are sleeping, and the time is slipping away; we are sleeping!" Lavretsky replies, "Permit me to observe, that we are not sleeping at present, but rather preventing others from sleeping. We are straining our throats like the cocks--listen! there is one crowing for the third time." To which Mihalevich smilingly rejoins, "Good-bye till tomorrow." Then follows, "But the friends talked for more than an hour longer." In Chirikov's powerful drama, The Jews, the scene of animated discussion that takes place on the stage is a perfect picture of what is happening in hundreds of Russian towns every night. An admirable description of a typical Russian conversation is given by Turgenev, in Virgin Soil:--

"Like the first flakes of snow, swiftly whirling, crossing and recrossing in the still mild air of autumn, words began flying, tumbling, jostling against one another in the heated atmosphere of Golushkin's dining-room--words of all sorts--progress, government, literature; the taxation question, the church question, the Roman question, the law-court question; classicism, realism, nihilism, communism; international, clerical, liberal, capital; administration, organisation, association, and even crystallisation! It was just this uproar which seemed to arouse Golushkin to enthusiasm; the real gist of the matter seemed to consist in this, for him." ^[10]

The Anglo-Saxon is content to allow ideas that are inconsistent and irreconcilable to get along together as best they may in his mind, in order that he may somehow get something done. Not so the Russian. Dr. Johnson, who settled Berkeleian idealism by kicking a stone, and the problem of free will by stoutly declaring, "I know I'm free and there's an end on't," would have had an interesting time among the Slavs. It is rather fortunate that the Russian love of theory is so often accompanied by the paralysis of will power, otherwise political crimes would be much commoner in Russia than they are. The Russian is tremendously impulsive, but not at all practical. Many hold the most extreme views, views that would shock a typical Anglo-Saxon out of his complacency; but they remain harmless and gentle theorists. Many Russians do not believe in God, or Law, or Civil Government, or Marriage, or any of the fundamental Institutions of Society; but their daily life is as regular and conventional as a New Englander's. Others, however, attempt to live up to their theories, not so much for their personal enjoyment, as for the satisfaction that comes from intellectual consistency. In general, it may be said that the Russian is far more of an extremist, far more influenced by theory, than people of the West. This is particularly true of the youth of Russia, always hot-headed and impulsive, and who are constantly attempting to put into practice the latest popular theories of life. American undergraduates are the most conservative folk in the world; if any strange theory in morals or politics becomes noised abroad, the American student opposes to it the one time-honoured weapon of the conservative from Aristophanes down,—burlesque. Mock processions and absurd travesties of "the latest thing" in politics are a feature of every academic year at an American university. Indeed, an American student leading a radical political mob is simply unthinkable. It is common enough in Russia, where in political disturbances students are very often prominent. If a young Russian gives his intellectual assent to a theory, his first thought is to illustrate it in his life. One of the most terrible results of the publication of Artsybashev's novel Sanin—where the hero's theory of life is simply to enjoy it, and where the Christian system of morals is ridiculed—was the organisation, in various high schools, among the boys and girls, of societies zum ungehinderten Geschechtsgenuss. They were simply doing what Sanin told them they ought to do; and having decided that he was right, they immediately put his theories into practice. Again, when Tolstoi finally made up his mind that the Christian system of ethics was correct, he had no peace until he had attempted to live in every respect in accordance with those doctrines. And he persuaded thousands of Russians to attempt the same thing. Now in England and in America, every minister knows that it is perfectly safe to preach the Sermon on the Mount every day in the year. There is no occasion for alarm. Nobody will do anything rash.

The fact that the French language, culture, and manners have been superimposed upon Russian society should never be forgotten in a discussion of the Russian national character. For many years, and until very recently, French was the language constantly used by educated and aristocratic native Russians, just as it is by the Poles and by the Roumanians. It will never cease seeming strange to an American to hear a Russian mother and son talk intimately together in a language not their own. Even Pushkin, the founder of Russian literature, the national poet, wrote in a letter to a friend, "Je vous parlerai la langue de l'Europe, elle m'est plus familiere." Imagine Tennyson writing a letter in French, with the explanation that French came easier to him!

It follows, as a consequence, that the chief reading of Russian society people is French novels; that French customs, morals, and manners (as portrayed in French fiction) have had an enormous effect on the educated classes in Russia. If we may believe half the testimony we hear, -- I am not sure that we can, -- Russian aristocratic society is to-day the most corrupt in the world. There is an immense contrast between Parisians and Russians, and the literature that would not damage the morals of the former is deadly to the latter. The spirit of mockery in the Parisian throws off the germs of their theatre and their fiction. I have seen in a Parisian theatre men, their wives, and their families laughing unrestrainedly at a piece, that if exhibited before an American audience would simply disgust some, and make others morbidly attentive. This kind of literature, comic or tragic, disseminated as it everywhere is among impulsive and passionate Russian readers, has been anything but morally healthful. One might as rationally go about and poison wells. And the Russian youth are sophisticated to a degree that seems to us almost startling. In 1903, a newspaper in Russia sent out thousands of blanks to high school boys and girls all over the country, to discover what books constituted their favourite reading. Among native authors, Tolstoi was first, closely followed by Gorki; among foreign writers, Guy de Maupassant was the most popular! The constant reading of Maupassant by boys and girls of fifteen and sixteen years, already emancipated from the domination of religious ideas, can hardly be morally hygienic. And to-day, in many families all over the Western world, Hygiene has taken the place of God.

Russian novelists have given us again and again pictures of typical society women who are thoroughly corrupt. We find them in historical and in contemporary fiction. They are in War and Peace, in Anna Karenina, in Dead Souls, in A House of Gentlefolk, and in the books of to-day. And it is worth remembering that when Tolstoi was a young man, his aunt advised him to have an intrigue with a married woman, for the added polish and ease it would give to his manners, just as an American mother sends her boy to dancing-school.

Finally, in reading the works of Tolstoi, Turgenev, Dostoevski, Gorki, Chekhov, Andreev, and others, what is the general impression produced on the mind of a foreigner? It is one of intense gloom. Of all the dark books in fiction, no works sound such depths of suffering and despair as are fathomed by the Russians. Many English readers used to say that the novels of George Eliot were "profoundly sad," -- it became almost a hackneyed phrase. Her stories are rollicking comedies compared with the awful shadow cast by the literature of the Slavs. Suffering is the heritage of the Russian race; their history is steeped in blood and tears, their present condition seems intolerably painful, and the future is an impenetrable cloud. In the life of the peasants there is of course fun and laughter, as there is in every human life; but at the root there is suffering, not the loud protest of the Anglo-Saxon labourer, whose very loudness is a witness to his vitality -- but passive, fatalistic, apathetic misery. Life has been often defined, but never in a more depressing fashion than by the peasant in Gorki's novel, who asks quietly: --

"What does the word Life mean to us? A feast? No. Work? No. A battle? Oh, no!! For us Life is something merely tiresome, dull, -- a kind of heavy burden. In carrying it we sigh with weariness and complain of its weight. Do we really love Life! The Love of Life! The very words sound strange to our ears! We love only our dreams of the future and this love is Platonic, with no hope of fruition."

Suffering is the corner-stone of Russian life, as it is of Russian fiction. That is one reason why the Russians produce here and there such splendid characters, and such mighty books. The Russian capacity for suffering is the real text of the great works of Dostoevski, and the reason why his name is so beloved in Russia -- he understood the hearts of his countrymen. Of all the courtesans who have illustrated the Christian religion on the stage and in fiction, the greatest is Dostoevski's Sonia. Her amazing sincerity and deep simplicity make us ashamed of any tribute of tears we may have given to the familiar sentimental type. She does not know what the word "sentiment" means; but the awful sacrifice of her daily life is the great modern illustration of Love. Christ again is crucified. When the refined, cultivated, philosophical student Raskolnikov stoops to this ignorant girl and kisses her feet, he says, "I did not bow down to you individually, but to suffering Humanity in your person." That phrase gives us an insight into the Russian national character.

The immediate result of all this suffering as set forth in the lives and in the books of the great Russians, is Sympathy -- pity and sympathy for Humanity. Thousands are purified and ennobled by these sublime pictures of woe. And one of the most remarkable of contemporary Russian novels -- Andreev's The Seven Who Were Hanged, a book bearing on every page the stamp of indubitable genius -- radiates a sympathy and pity that are almost divine.

This growth of Love and Sympathy in the Russian national character is to me the sign of greatest promise in their future, both as a nation of men and women, and as a contributor to the world's great works of literary art. If anything can dispel the black clouds in their dreary sky, it will be this wonderful emotional power. The political changes, the Trans-Siberian railway, their industrial and agricultural progress, -- all these are as nothing compared with the immense advance that Christian sympathy is now making in the hearts of the Russian people. The books of Dostoevski and Tolstoi point directly to the Gospel, and although Russia is theoretically a Christian nation, no country needs real Christianity more than she. The tyranny of the bureaucracy, the corruption of fashionable society, the sufferings of the humble classes, the hollow formalism of the Church, make Russia particularly ripe for the true Gospel just as true to-day as when given to the world in Palestine. Sixty years ago Gogol wrote: "What is it that is most truly Russian? What is the main characteristic of our Russian nature, that we now try to develop by making it reject everything strange and foreign to it? The value of the Russian nature consists in this that it is capable, more than any other, of receiving the noble word of the Gospel, which leads man toward perfection." One cannot read Dostoevski and Tolstoi without thinking of the truth of Gogol's declaration.

All the philosophy and wisdom of the world have never improved on the teachings of the Founder of Christianity. What the individual and society need to-day is not Socialism, Communism, or Nihilism; no temporary palliative sought in political, social, or financial Reform; what we each need is a closer personal contact with the simple truths of the New Testament. The last word on all political, philosophical, and social questions may still be found in the Sermon on the Mount. It is a significant fact, that Tolstoi, after a varied and long experience of human life, after reviewing all the systems of thought that have influenced modern society, should have finally arrived and found rest in the statements that most of us learned in childhood from our mothers' lips.

 

1. Arnold told Sainte-Beuve that he did not think Lamartine was "important." Sainte-Beuve answered, "He is important for us."
2. Russia of To-day, page 203.
3. Dead Souls, translated by Isabel Hapgood.
4. It is possible that both the humility and the melancholy of the Russian character are partly caused by the climate, and the vast steppes and forests, which seem to indicate the insignificance of man.
5. Translated by Iza Young.
6. Goncharov devoted a whole novel, Oblomov, to the elaboration of this particular type.
7. I have made the spelling of Russian names uniform, in all citations.
8. Blackstick Papers, 1908.
9. Gogol said in Dead Souls, "We Russians have not the slightest talent for deliberative assemblies."
10. All citations from Turgenev's novels are from Constance Garnett's translations.