And no people are more jealous on this very point than the French. In the last of his wonderful "Poems in Prose," Turgenev cried out: "In these days of doubt, in these days of painful brooding over the fate of my country, thou alone art my rod and my staff, O great, mighty, true and free Russian language! If it were not for thee, how could one keep from despairing at the sight of what is going on at home? But it is inconceivable that such a language should not belong to a great people." It is significant that Turgenev, who was so full of sympathy for the ideas and civilization of Western Europe, and who was so often regarded (unjustly) by his countrymen as a traitor to Russia, should have written all his masterpieces, not in French, of which he had a perfect command, but in his own beloved mother-tongue. We see by the above extracts, that Russia has an instrument of expression as near perfection as is possible in human speech. Perhaps one reason for the supremacy of Russian fiction may be found here. The immense size of the country produces an element of largeness in Russian character that one feels not only in their novels, but almost invariably in personal contact and conversation with a more or less educated Russian. This is not imaginary and fantastic; it is a definite sensation, and immediately apparent. Bigness in early environment often produces a certain comfortable largeness of mental vision. One has only to compare in this particular a man from Russia with a man from Holland, or still better, a man from Texas with a man from Connecticut. The difference is easy to see, and easier to feel. It is possible that the man from the smaller district may be more subtle, or he may have had better educational advantages; but he is likely to be more narrow. A Texan told me once that it was eighteen miles from his front door to his front gate; now I was born in a city block, with no front yard at all. I had surely missed something.