But the idea is present only cloudily in his mind until it comes into contact with some fact from real life (in this instance, a criminal court case, a _cause célèbre_) which will make it fructify. Then--and not till then--can we speak of the work as conceived. “I am writing with a purpose,” he says in the same letter, speaking of _The Possessed_ which reached fruition about the same period as _The Karamazovs_, another novel with a purpose. Nothing less gratuitous, in the modern acceptation of the term, than Dostoevsky’s work. Each of his novels is in its way a demonstration, I might even say a speech for the defence, or better still, a sermon. And if I dared find in this wonderful artist any grounds for reproach, I might suggest that he sought to _prove_ only too well. Let there be no disagreement on this score: Dostoevsky never tries to influence our opinion unduly. He seeks to bring light into dark places, to make plain certain hidden truths, which to him appear already dazzlingly clear and of paramount importance, the most important, no doubt, to which the mind of man can attain: not truths of an abstract nature, beyond human grasp, but truths secret and intimately personal. On the other hand, what saves his work from the disfigurements inseparable from all writing with a purpose, is the fact that these truths are ever subordinated to fact, and his ideas infused with reality. Towards these realities of human experience, his attitude is ever humble and obedient; he never applies pressure nor turns a happening to his own advantage. It would seem that even to his very thought he applied the Gospel precept: “_For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it._” Before attempting to trace some of Dostoevsky’s ideas in his books, I should like to speak of his method of working. Strakhov tells us that Dostoevsky worked almost exclusively at night: “About midnight, when everything was becoming still, there was Dostoevsky left alone with his samovar, and he used to go on working till five or six in the morning, sipping at intervals cold, mild-drawn tea. He rose about two or three in the afternoon, spent the rest of the day entertaining guests, walking, or visiting friends.” Dostoevsky was not always able to content himself with mild-drawn tea; during the last years of his life, he lost grip of himself, and drank, we are told, a great quantity of spirits. One day, so the story runs, Dostoevsky came out of his study, where he was busy writing _The Possessed_, in a state of remarkable mental exhilaration, obtained in some degree by artificial stimulus. It was Madame Dostoevsky’s “at home” day. Dostoevsky, wild-eyed, burst into the drawing-room where several ladies were sitting, one of whom, cordiality itself, hastened forward to him with a cup of tea. “Devil take you and your dish-water,” he shouted.