At last, freed from his horrible financial worries, he busies himself during the closing years of his life with editing the _Journal of an Author_, published only at irregular intervals. “I confess,” he wrote to the well-known Aksakov in November, 1880 (that is, three months before his death), “I confess, in all friendship, that intending to undertake next year the publication of the _Journal_, I have besought God often and long to make me pure in heart and pure of lips; without sin or envy, and incapable of wounding.”[30] In this _Journal_ wherein M. de Vogüé could see only “obscure pæans, evading alike analysis and discussion,” the Russian people happily discovered something different, and Dostoevsky was able to feel that round about his work his dream of spiritual harmony was almost being realized, without any arbitrary unification. When his death was announced, this communion and blending of spirits was shiningly manifested, and if, at first, “subversive elements planned to monopolize his dead body,” very soon, “by the miracle of one of these unexpected fusions that are Russia’s secret, when a national conviction rouses her, all parties, all antagonists, all scattered fragments of the empire were seen to be joined in a fresh bond of enthusiasm by this death.” The sentence is M. de Vogüé’s, and I rejoice after all the strictures I have made concerning his study, to be able to quote such noble words. “As it was said of the Tsars of old, that they gathered together the land of Russia,” he says later, “this spiritual King had ‘gathered together’ the heart of Russia.” The same rallying of individual energies is at work now throughout Europe, slowly, mysteriously, almost--chiefly in Germany, where the editions of his works are multiplying, in France, too, where the rising generation recognizes and appreciates, better than that of M. de Vogüé, his strength. The hidden reasons which delayed his success will be the builders of a more enduring fame. FOOTNOTES [5] M. Gide refers to J. W. Bienstock’s translation, _Correspondance et Voyage à l’Étranger_, Paris, 1908. (_Translator’s note._) [6] Letter to his brother Michael, Semipalatinsk, May 31, 1858. [7] Bienstock, p. 122. Letter to A. N. Maïkov, Semipalatinsk, January 18, 1856. [8] Bienstock, p. 364. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, February 26, 1870. [9] Bienstock, p. 387-388. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, December 2, 1870. [10] Bienstock, p. 415. Letter to A. N. Maïkov, Dresden, March 2, 1871. [11] Bienstock, pp. 364-365. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, February 26, 1870. [12] Bienstock, p. 55. Letter to his brother Michael, March 24, 1845. [13] Mayne, p. 198. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, October 9, 1870. [14] Bienstock, pp. 386-387. Letter to N. N. Strakhov, Dresden, December 2, 1870. [15] Bienstock, p. 267. Letter to A. N. Maïkov, Geneva, September 15, 1867. [16] Bienstock, pp. 470-471. Letter to Mlle. N. N----, Petersburg, April 11, 1880.