SOURCE: Preface to All Things Are Possible, in Selected Literary Criticism, edited by Anthony Beal, 1955. Reprint by Viking Press, 1955, pp. 242-44.

Lawrence was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, critic, translator, and dramatist, who is known for his controversial and outspoken ideas on such topics such as religion, psychology, and sex. In the following essay, which was originally published in 1920 as a preface to All Things Are Possible, he identifies Shestov as the disseminator of culture that is distinctively Russian, devoid of the influence of Western Europe.

In his paragraph on The Russian Spirit, Shestov gives us the real clue to Russian literature. European culture is a rootless thing in the Russians. With us, it is our very blood and bones, the very nerve and root of our psyche. We think in a certain fashion, we feel in a certain fashion, because our whole substance is...