The strange Slavophil dream of the regeneration of the world by the power of the Russian soul and the magic of the “White Christ who comes out of Russia” could not be more arrestingly expressed than in these passionate and extraordinary works of art.

47.  TURGENIEV.  VIRGIN SOIL.  A SPORTSMAN’S SKETCHES. Translated by Constance Garnett.  And “Lisa” in Everyman’s Library.

Turgeniev is by far the most “artistic” as he is the most disillusioned and ironical of Russian writers.  With a tender poetical delicacy, almost worthy of Shakespeare, he sketches his appealing portraits of young girls.  His style is clear—­objective—­winnowed and fastidious.  He has certain charming old-fashioned weaknesses—­as for instance his trick of over-emphasizing the differences between his bad and good characters; but there is a clear-cut distinction, and a lucid charm about his work that reminds one of certain old crayon drawings or certain delicate water-color sketches.  His allusions to natural scenery are always introduced with peculiar appropriateness and are never permitted to dominate the dramatic element of the story as happens so often in other writers.

There is a sad and tender vein of unobtrusive moralizing running through his work but one is conscious that at bottom he is profoundly pessimistic and disenchanted.  The gaiety of Turgeniev is winning and unforced; his sentiment natural and never “staled or rung upon.”  The pensive detachment of a sensitive and yet not altogether unworldly spirit seems to be the final impression evoked by his books.

50.  GORKI—­FOMA GORDYEFF. Translation published by Scribners.

Maxim Gorki is one of the most interesting of Russian writers.  His books have that flavour of the soil and that courageous spirit of vagabondage and social independence which is so rare and valuable a quality in literature.

“Foma Gordyeff” is, after Dostoievsky’s masterpieces, the most suggestive and arresting of Russian stories.  That paralysis of the will which descends like an evil cloud upon Foma and at the same time seems to cause the ground to open under his feet and precipitate him into mysterious depths of nothingness, is at once tragically significant of certain aspects of the Russian soul and full of mysterious warnings to all those modern spirits in whom the power of action is “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”

For those who have been “fooled to the top of their bent” by the stupidities and brutalities of the crowd there is a savage satisfaction in reading of Foma’s insane outbursts of misanthropy.

51.  TCHEKOFF—­SEAGULL. Tchekoff’s plays and short stories are published by Scribners in admirable translations.

Tchekoff is one of the gentlest and sweetest tempered of Russian writers.  There is in him a genuine graciousness, a politeness of soul, an innate delicacy, which is not touched—­as such qualities often are in the work of Turgeniev—­with any kind of self-conscious Olympianism.  A doctor, a consumptive, and a passionate lover of children, there is a whimsical humanity about all that Tchekoff writes which has a singular and quite special appeal.