conscientiousness of what is written.[1] Mihailovskii had belletristic aspirations, and proposed to write a topical novel, but soon desisted from the attempt. His best friends advised him against it, and he was sufficiently self-critical to recognise that his imagination was unequal to the task. The cumbrousness and monotony of Mihailovskii's style is especially conspicuous in his more intimate reminiscences and in his critiques of the masterworks of literature; but he understood how to express his judgments in pregnant words and phrases, as if in the hope that these, giving colour, would make the reader forget the stylistic monotony. Not a few of his words and phrases have become widely current.
Throughout life, though he acquired much knowledge, and acquired it thoroughly, Mihailovskii regarded himself, not as a philosopher, but as a reader. "A Reader's Diary"—here we have a picture of the onlooker who is an indefatigable reader, but we have likewise a characterisation of his literary modesty. This modesty does not exclude a justified self-complacency. When he contrasts himself as a "layman" with professional experts, or when his pen finds a critical word to say about "men of learning," we sense satire and gentle mockery. Yet Mihailovskii could gladly do justice to the claim of the professional expert. He was less abstract than Lavrov. The latter took Europe as his starting point, and contemplated Russia from a distance; the former lived in Russia, and set out from the extant problems and difficulties of that country.
Whereas Lavrov, like so many of his predecessors and contemporaries, wrote as a refugee, and whereas, living abroad, he enjoyed complete freedom of speech, Mihailovskii worked at home, under the knout of the Russian censorship, and very few of his essays were first published abroad. The consequence was that Mihailovskii's method of expression was somewhat subdued, and bore the stamp of excessive reflection, while his choice of subjects was determined in relation to the censorship. But the very significance of Mihailovskii lies in this, that he did not take refuge abroad, and was not sent to Siberia. Thus for three decades, from the beginning of the seventies onwards, his works were as a beacon to the younger generation and as a guide to his contemporaries. But this
- ↑ Herzen, though pleased with the contents of Mihailovskii's first published work, What is Progress, censured its style.
