more sensational sounds come from the younger Russian men of to-day,
and all this bewildering audacity of composition has in certain places
drowned for a time the less pretentious beauty of Turgenev's method.
During the early years of the twentieth century, there has been a
visible reaction against him, an attempt to persuade the world that
after all he was a subordinate and secondary man. This attitude is
shown plainly in Mr. Baring's "Landmarks in Russian Literature," whose
book is chiefly valuable for its sympathetic understanding of the
genius of Dostoevski. How far this reaction has gone may be seen in
the remark of Professor Bruckner, in his "Literary History of Russia":
"The great, healthy artist Turgenev always moves along levelled paths,
in the fair avenues of an ancient landowner's park. Aesthetic pleasure
is in his well-balanced narrative of how Jack and Jill did NOT come
together: deeper ideas he in no wise stirs in us." If "A House of
Gentlefolk" and "Fathers and Children" stir no deeper ideas than that
in the mind of Professor Bruckner, whose fault is it? One can only
pity him. But there are still left some humble individuals, at least
one, who, caring little for politics and the ephemeral nature of
political watchwords and party strife, and still less for faddish
fashions in art, persist in giving their highest homage to the great
artists whose work shows the most perfect union of Truth and Beauty.





IV

DOSTOEVSKI