Finally, in reading the works of Tolstoi, Turgenev, Dostoevski, Gorki, Chekhov, Andreev, and others, what is the general impression produced on the mind of a foreigner? It is one of intense gloom. Of all the dark books in fiction, no works sound such depths of suffering and despair as are fathomed by the Russians. Many English readers used to say that the novels of George Eliot were "profoundly sad,"--it became almost a hackneyed phrase. Her stories are rollicking comedies compared with the awful shadow cast by the literature of the Slavs. Suffering is the heritage of the Russian race; their history is steeped in blood and tears, their present condition seems intolerably painful, and the future is an impenetrable cloud. In the life of the peasants there is of course fun and laughter, as there is in every human life; but at the root there is suffering, not the loud protest of the Anglo-Saxon labourer, whose very loudness is a witness to his vitality--but passive, fatalistic, apathetic misery. Life has been often defined, but never in a more depressing fashion than by the peasant in Gorki's novel, who asks quietly:-- "What does the word Life mean to us? A feast? No. Work? No. A battle? Oh, no!! For us Life is something merely tiresome, dull,--a kind of heavy burden. In carrying it we sigh with weariness and complain of its weight. Do we really love Life! The Love of Life! The very words sound strange to our ears! We love only our dreams of the future--and this love is Platonic, with no hope of fruition." Suffering is the corner-stone of Russian life, as it is of Russian fiction. That is one reason why the Russians produce here and there such splendid characters, and such mighty books. The Russian capacity for suffering is the real text of the great works of Dostoevski, and the reason why his name is so beloved in Russia--he understood the hearts of his countrymen. Of all the courtesans who have illustrated the Christian religion on the stage and in fiction, the greatest is Dostoevski's Sonia. Her amazing sincerity and deep simplicity make us ashamed of any tribute of tears we may have given to the familiar sentimental type. She does not know what the word "sentiment" means; but the awful sacrifice of her daily life is the great modern illustration of Love. Christ again is crucified. When the refined, cultivated, philosophical student Raskolnikov stoops to this ignorant girl and kisses her feet, he says, "I did not bow down to you individually, but to suffering Humanity in your person." That phrase gives us an insight into the Russian national character.