the most terrible results of the publication of Artsybashev's novel
"Sanin"--where the hero's theory of life is simply to enjoy it, and
where the Christian system of morals is ridiculed--was the
organisation, in various high schools, among the boys and girls, of
societies zum ungehinderten Geschechtsgenuss. They were simply doing
what Sanin told them they ought to do; and having decided that he was
right, they immediately put his theories into practice. Again, when
Tolstoi finally made up his mind that the Christian system of ethics
was correct, he had no peace until he had attempted to live in every
respect in accordance with those doctrines. And he persuaded thousands
of Russians to attempt the same thing. Now in England and in America,
every minister knows that it is perfectly safe to preach the Sermon on
the Mount every day in the year. There is no occasion for alarm.
Nobody will do anything rash.


The fact that the French language, culture, and manners have been
superimposed upon Russian society should never be forgotten in a
discussion of the Russian national character. For many years, and
until very recently, French was the language constantly used by
educated and aristocratic native Russians, just as it is by the Poles
and by the Roumanians. It will never cease seeming strange to an
American to hear a Russian mother and son talk intimately together in
a language not their own. Even Pushkin, the founder of Russian
literature, the national poet, wrote in a letter to a friend, "Je vous
parlerai la langue de l'Europe, elle m'est plus familiere." Imagine
Tennyson writing a letter in French, with the explanation that French
came easier to him!

It follows, as a consequence, that the chief reading of Russian