This last sentence shows the real animus against Turgenev that
obsesses Mr. Baring's mind; once more the reader queries, Suppose
Dostoevski be all that Mr. Baring claims for him, why is it necessary
to attack Turgenev? Is there not room in Russian literature for both
men? But as Mr. Baring has appealed to Russian criticism, it is only
fair to quote one Russian critic of good standing, Kropotkin. He
says:--

"Dostoevski is still very much read in Russia; and when, some twenty
years ago, his novels were first translated into French, German, and
English, they were received as a revelation. He was praised as one of
the greatest writers of our own time, and as undoubtedly the one who
'had best expressed the mystic Slavonic soul'--whatever that
expression may mean! Turgenev was eclipsed by Dostoevski, and Tolstoi
was forgotten for a time. There was, of course, a great deal of
hysterical exaggeration in all this, and at the present time sound
literary critics do not venture to indulge in such praises. The fact
is, that there is certainly a great deal of power in whatever
Dostoevski wrote: his powers of creation suggest those of Hoffmann;
and his sympathy with the most down-trodden and down-cast products of
the civilisation of our large towns is so deep that it carries away
the most indifferent reader and exercises a most powerful impression
in the right direction upon young readers. His analysis of the most
varied specimens of incipient psychical disease is said to be
thoroughly correct. But with all that, the artistic qualities of his
novels are incomparably below those of any one of the great Russian
masters Tolstoi, Turgenev, or Goncharov. Pages of consummate realism
are interwoven with the most fantastical incidents worthy only of the
most incorrigible romantics. Scenes of a thrilling interest are
interrupted in order to introduce a score of pages of the most