The curious thing is that his work does not reveal an overwhelming pessimism like Leopardi's, an accent of revolt like Musset's, or of combat like Byron's; but rather it testifies to a fundamental indifference to life, a concentrated pride. If it be true that you can roughly divide the Russian temperament into two types--the type of the pure fool, such as Dostoyevsky's _Idiot_, and a type of unconquerable pride, such as Lucifer--then Lermontov is certainly a fine example of the second type. You feel that he will never submit or yield; but then he died young; and the Russian poets often changed, and not infrequently adopted a compromise which was the same thing as submission. Lermontov was, like Pushkin, essentially a lyric poet, still more subjective, and profoundly self-centred. His attempts at the drama (imitations of Schiller and an attempt at the manner of Griboyedov) were failures. But, unlike Pushkin, he was a true romantic; and his work proves to us how essentially different a thing Russian romanticism is from French, German or English romanticism. He began with astonishing precocity to write verse when he was twelve. His earliest efforts were in French. He then began to imitate Pushkin. While at the Cadet School he wrote a series of cleverly written, more or less indecent, and more or less Byronic--the Byron of _Beppo_--tales in verse, describing his love adventures, and episodes of garrison life. What brought him fame was his "Ode on the Death of Pushkin," which, although unjustified by the actual facts--he represents Pushkin as the victim of a bloodthirsty society--strikes strong and bitter chords. Here, without any doubt, are "thoughts that breathe and words that burn"-- "And you, the proud and shameless progeny Of fathers famous for their infamy, You, who with servile heel have trampled down The fragments of great names laid low by chance, You, hungry crowd that swarms about the throne, Butchers of freedom, and genius, and glory, You hide behind the shelter of the law, Before you, right and justice must be dumb! But, parasites of vice, there's God's assize; There is an awful court of law that waits. You cannot reach it with the sound of gold; It knows your thoughts beforehand and your deeds; And vainly you shall call the lying witness; That shall not help you any more; And not with all the filth of all your gore Shall you wash out the poet's righteous blood." He struck this strong chord more than once, especially in his indictment of his own generation, called "A Thought"; and in a poem written on the transfer of Napoleon's ashes to Paris, in which he pours scorn on the French for deserting Napoleon when he lived and then acclaiming his ashes.