endeavoured to prove that a conception of the world which is to assign a meaning to life cannot possibly be based upon the "impenetrable" of Spencer.
Through Pleshtcheyev I became a visitor at Madame Davydov's, the wife of the famous musician and director of the Petrograd Conservatoire. In her house I met Gontcharov, who was already a blind old man, and the poet Maikov and Polonsky, and later Korolenko, Garshin, Mikhailovsky, and Uspensky, who were contributors to the "Northern Messenger," founded by Madame Yevreinovna. I also wrote for this review, and in it I published "Silvia," a dreadfully long and clumay dramatic poem, together with a sympathetic essay on Chekhov, who first appeared about that time, but had not yet attracted anyone's attention.
Mikhailovsky had a great influence on me, not only through his works, which I fairly devoured, but also through his whole noble personality. He commissioned me to write an essay on "The Peasant in French Literature"; when the work was completed, he rejected it; it was too feeble and did not harmonise with the tone of the paper. Mikhailovsky and Uspensky were my first real teachers. I once visited Glyeb Uspensky at Tchudovo, and talked with him all night on questions about which I was most deeply concerned; about the religious meaning of life. He declared
