formulating its demands in the words: _Blessed be the union of the sword and the lyre._ It used to happen that the Muses did not refuse the request, sometimes sincerely, sometimes because, as Heine said, it is particularly disagreeable to wear iron chains in Russia, on account of the heavy frosts. In any case the Muses were only allowed to sing the praises of the sword, but by no means to wield it. There are all kinds of unions. And here again Dostoevsky, for all his independent nature, still appeared in the rôle of a prophet of the Russian government: that is, he divined the secret devices of the powers that were, and in this connection then recalled all the 'high and beautiful' words which he had managed to hoard up in the course of his long wanderings. For instance, the government began to cast covetous glances towards the East (at that time the Near East still); Dostoevsky begins to argue that we must have Constantinople, and to prophesy that Constantinople will soon be ours. His 'argument' is, of course, of a purely 'moral character,' and, sure enough, he is a writer. Only from Constantinople, he says, can we make avail the purely Russian ideal of embracing all humanity. Of course our government, though indeed we had no Bismarcks, perfectly well understood the value of moral argument and of prophecy based upon them, and would have preferred a few well-equipped divisions and improved guns. To realist politicians one single soldier, armed not with a gun but with a blunderbuss, is of more importance than the sublimest conception of moral philosophy. But still they do not drive away the humble prophet, if the prophet knows his place. Dostoevsky accepted the rôle, since it gave him still the opportunity of displaying his refractory nature in the struggle with Liberal literature. He sang paeans, made protests, uttered absurdities--and worse than absurdities. For instance, he counselled all the Slav peoples to unite under the aegis of Russia, assuring them that only thus would full independence be guaranteed them, and the right of shaping themselves by their own culture, and so on--and that in the face of the millions of Polish Slavs living in Russia. Or again, the _Moscow Gazette_ gives its opinion that it would be well for the Crimean Tartars to emigrate to Turkey, since it would then be possible for Russians to settle in the peninsula. Dostoevsky catches up this original idea with enthusiasm. 'Indeed,' he says, 'on political and state and similar considerations'--I do not know how it is with other people, but when I hear such words as 'state' and 'political' on Dostoevsky's lips, I cannot help smiling--'it is necessary to expel the Tartars and to settle Russians on their lands.' When the _Moscow Gazette_ projects such a measure, it is intelligible. But Dostoevsky! Dostoevsky who called himself a Christian, who so passionately preaches love to one's neighbour, self-abasement, self-renunciation, who taught