But perhaps these letters furnish, wrongly, the impression of a human creature ever deep in despair, seeing that they were written only when despair was greatest. No: incoming moneys were immediately swallowed up by debts, and thus, at the age of fifty, he could truthfully say of himself, “My life long I have toiled for money, and my life long I have been in need, more sorely now than ever.”[8] Debts, or gambling, lack of restraint, and that instinctive, prodigal generosity which made Riesenkampf, the companion of his youth, say, “Dostoevsky is one of these people in whose company a man lives well, but who himself will remain a needy creature till the very end of his days.” When fifty, he wrote: “This plan of a novel (i.e. _The Brothers Karamazov_, not written till nine years later) has been tormenting me now for more than three years; but I have not made a start with it, because I should like to write it in my own good time, like Tolstoy, Turgeniev, and Gontcharov. Let me write at least one of my works unhampered and without the preoccupation of being ready at a fixed date.”[9] But it is in vain that he repeats, “I don’t understand hurriedly done work, written for money”: this money question invariably obtrudes itself, together with the fear of not being ready in time. “I dread not being ready in time, being late. I should hate to spoil things by my haste. I admit the plan has been well conceived and thought over; but haste can ruin all.”[10] The result of this is terrible overstrain, for he stakes his honour on an ideal of faithfulness that is beset with difficulties, and he would die in harness sooner than furnish imperfect work. Towards the close of his life he can say: “Throughout my literary career, I have kept my agreements with scrupulous exactness, not once have I broken my word; and what is more, I have never written for money’s sake alone, nor in order to deliver myself from accepted obligations,” and a little before, in the same letter: “I have never invented a theme for money’s sake, to meet the obligation of writing up to a previously agreed time-limit. I always made an agreement ... and sold myself into bondage beforehand ... only when I already had my theme in mind prepared for writing, and when it was one that I felt it necessary to develop.”[11] So if in one of his early letters (written at the age of twenty-four) he makes protest: “Whatever befall me, my resolution will remain unshaken; even if driven to the extreme limit of privation, I shall stand firm and never compose to order. Constraint is pernicious and soul-destroying. I want each of my works to be good in itself”[12] ... we can, without cavilling, admit that he did not break his vow.