_The Russian Spirit_.--It will easily be admitted that the distinguishing qualities of Russian literature, and of Russian art in general, are simplicity, truthfulness, and complete lack of rhetorical ornament. Whether it be to our credit or to our discredit is not for me to judge, but one thing seems certain: that our simplicity and truthfulness are due to our relatively scanty culture. Whilst European thinkers have for centuries been beating their brains over insoluble problems, we have only just begun to try our powers. We have no failures behind us. The fathers of the profoundest Russian writers were either landowners, dividing their time between extravagant amusement and State service, or peasants whose drudgery left them no time for idle curiosity. Such being the case, how can we know whether human knowledge has any limits? And if we don't know, it seems to us it is only because we haven't tried to find out. Other people's experience is not ours. We are not bound by their conclusions. Indeed, what do we know of the experience of others, save what we gather, very vaguely and fragmentarily and unreliably, from books? It is natural for us to believe the best, till the contrary is proved to us. Any attempt to deprive us of our belief meets with the most energetic resistance. The most sceptical Russian hides a hope at the bottom of his soul. Hence our fearlessness of the truth, realistic truth which so stunned European critics. Realism was invented in the West, established there as a theory. But in the West, to counteract it, were invented numberless other palliating theories whose business it was to soften down the disconsolate conclusions of Realism. There in Europe they have the _l'être suprême_, the _deus sive natura_, Hegel's absolute, Kant's postulates, English utilitarianism, progress, humanitarianism, hundreds of philosophic and sociological theories in which even extreme realists can so cleverly dish up what they call life, that life, or realism, ceases to be life or reality altogether.