cold, he had an epileptic attack every ten days. His comment on all
this is, "I am only preparing to live," which is as heroic as Paul
Jones's shout, "I have not yet begun to fight."

In 1880 a monument to Pushkin was unveiled, and the greatest Russian
authors were invited to speak at the ceremony. This was the occasion
where Turgenev vainly tried to persuade Tolstoi to appear and
participate. Dostoevski paid his youthful debt to the ever living poet
in a magnificent manner. He made a wonderful oration on Russian
literature and the future of the Russian people, an address that
thrilled the hearts of his hearers, and inspired his countrymen
everywhere. On the 28 January 1881, he died, and forty thousand
mourners saw his body committed to the earth.

Much as I admire the brilliant Russian critic, Merezhkovski, I cannot
understand his statement that Dostoevski "drew little on his personal
experiences, had little self-consciousness, complained of no one." His
novels are filled with his personal experiences, he had an almost
abnormal self-consciousness, and he bitterly complained that Turgenev,
who did not need the money, received much more for his work than he.
Dostoevski's inequalities as a writer are so great that it is no
wonder he has been condemned by some critics as a mere journalistic
maker of melodrama, while others have exhausted their entire stock of
adjectives in his exaltation. His most ardent admirer at this moment
is Mr. Baring, who is at the same time animated by a strange jealousy
of Turgenev's fame, and seems to think it necessary to belittle the
author of "Fathers and Children" in order to magnify the author of
"Crime and Punishment." This seems idle; Turgenev and Dostoevski were
geniuses of a totally different order, and we ought to rejoice in the
greatness of each man, just as we do in the greatness of those two