Although Dostoevsky gives M. de Vogüé grounds for discerning in him a “bitter animosity against thought and against life in its fullness,” a “sanctification of the mindless, colourless, and invertebrate,” and so on, we read in another passage from a letter to his brother: “Simple folk, you will say. Aye, but I dread simple men more than complex ones.”[25] This was his reply to a girl who “was anxious to make herself useful,” and had expressed her desire to become a midwife or hospital nurse: “By giving regular attention to your general education you will fit yourself for an activity more useful a hundred times. Would it not be better to give thought to the higher branches of your general education?... The majority of our specialists are fundamentally ignorant--and most of our students, of both sexes, are absolutely uneducated. What good can _they_ do to humanity?”[26] Frankly I did not need these words to realize M. de Vogüé’s mistake; but, all the same, this mistake _was_ possible. Dostoevsky is not any more easily enrolled “for” or “against” Socialism; for, if Mme. Hoffmann is justified in saying, “A Socialist, in the most human acceptation of the word, Dostoevsky never for a moment ceased to be!” do we not read in his letters, “Socialism has already undermined Europe: if we delay too long, it will bring it to complete ruin”? Conservative, but not hide-bound by tradition: monarchist, but of democratic opinions: Christian, but not a Roman Catholic: liberal, but not a progressive: Dostoevsky remains ever the man of whom there is no way to make use! He is of the stuff which displeases every party. Why? Because he never persuaded himself that less than the whole of his intelligence was necessary to the part he chose to play, or that for the sake of immediate issues he would be justified in forcing so delicate an instrument or upsetting its balance. “À propos of all _these possible tendencies_,” he wrote (and the italics are his own), “which were united in an expression of welcome to me (April 9, 1876),[27] I should gladly have written an article on the impression made by the letters, but, on reflection, I realized that it would be impossible to write it in all sincerity: now, lacking sincerity, could it be worth while?” What does he mean? Doubtless this: to write a reasonable article so as to please everybody and make a success of it, he would have to strain his ideas, simplify them to excess, in short, force his convictions beyond natural limits. And that is just what he cannot concede. His individualism, while not harsh, and in reality one with his honesty of thought, does not allow him to submit his idea unless in its integrity, complex though this may be. And there is no stronger or subtler reason for his unpopularity amongst us.