"Like the first flakes of snow, swiftly whirling, crossing and recrossing in the still mild air of autumn, words began flying, tumbling, jostling against one another in the heated atmosphere of Golushkin's dining-room--words of all sorts--progress, government, literature; the taxation question, the church question, the Roman question, the law-court question; classicism, realism, nihilism, communism; international, clerical, liberal, capital; administration, organisation, association, and even crystallisation! It was just this uproar which seemed to arouse Golushkin to enthusiasm; the real gist of the matter seemed to consist in this, for him."* *All citations from Turgenev's novels are from Constance Garnett's translations. The Anglo-Saxon is content to allow ideas that are inconsistent and irreconcilable to get along together as best they may in his mind, in order that he may somehow get something done. Not so the Russian. Dr. Johnson, who settled Berkeleian idealism by kicking a stone, and the problem of free will by stoutly declaring, "I know I'm free and there's an end on't," would have had an interesting time among the Slavs. It is rather fortunate that the Russian love of theory is so often accompanied by the paralysis of will power, otherwise political crimes would be much commoner in Russia than they are. The Russian is tremendously impulsive, but not at all practical. Many hold the most extreme views, views that would shock a typical Anglo-Saxon out of his complacency; but they remain harmless and gentle theorists. Many Russians do not believe in God, or Law, or Civil Government, or Marriage, or any of the fundamental Institutions of Society; but their daily life is as regular and conventional as a New Englander's. Others, however, attempt to live up to their theories, not so much for their personal enjoyment, as for the satisfaction that comes from intellectual consistency. In general, it may be said that the Russian is far more of an extremist, far more influenced by theory, than people of the West. This is particularly true of the youth of Russia, always hot-headed and impulsive, and who are constantly attempting to put into practice the latest popular theories of life. American undergraduates are the most conservative folk in the world; if any strange theory in morals or politics becomes noised abroad, the American student opposes to it the one time-honoured weapon of the conservative from Aristophanes down,--burlesque. Mock processions and absurd travesties of "the latest thing" in politics are a feature of every academic year at an American university. Indeed, an American student leading a radical political mob is simply unthinkable. It is common enough in Russia, where in political disturbances students are very often prominent. If a young Russian gives his intellectual assent to a theory, his first thought is to illustrate it in his life. One of the most terrible results of the publication of Artsybashev's novel