Dostoevsky’s individualism, too, differentiates him more sharply--and more happily--from Barrès. And, set against Nietzsche, he becomes for us a shining example of how little infatuation and self-sufficiency may at times accompany belief in the value of the personality. “The hardest thing on earth,” he writes, “is to remain yourself,” and “no high aim is worth a life wrecked,” because for him, without individualism as without patriotism, there exists no way of serving humanity. If some Barrès enthusiasts were won over to him by the declarations I quoted a moment ago, is there one of them who would not be alienated by these fresh statements? So, too, on reading these words: “In the new humanity, the æsthetic idea lacks clarity. The moral basis of society, held fast by positivism, not only gives no results, but cannot define itself, for it is lost in cloudy aspirations and ideals. Are there yet not enough facts to prove that society is not established thus, that these are not the paths leading to happiness, and that this is not, as has been believed till now, the source of happiness? But what _is_ its source then? So many volumes are written, and the essential point is ever missed: the Western World has lost Christ Jesus--and for this, and this alone, the Western World must perish.” Not a French Catholic but would applaud--were he not drawn up sharply by the phrase I dropped at the beginning: “Christ has been lost, by the error of Catholicism.” What French Catholic will now dare let himself be touched by the tears of devotion that are shed throughout these letters of Dostoevsky’s? Vain hope, “to desire to reveal to the world a Russian Christ, unknown to the wider world, and whose very being is contained in our orthodoxy.” The French Catholic, by virtue of his own personal orthodoxy, will refuse to listen, and for the moment, at least, Dostoevsky’s further remark is made in vain: “In my opinion, here is found the principle of our future civilizing force and of Europe’s resurrection at our hands, the very essence of our future strength.”