In 1876 Turgenev wrote "Virgin Soil." Of the seven novels, this is the last, the longest, and the least. But it did not deserve then, and does not deserve now, the merciless condemnation of the critics; though they still take up stones to stone it. Never was a book about a revolutionary movement, written by one in sympathy with it, so lukewarm. Naturally the public could not swallow it, for even God cannot digest a Laodicean. But the lukewarmness in this instance arose, not from lack of conviction, but rather from the conviction that things can really happen only in the fulness of time. Everything in the story from first to last emphasises this fact and might be considered a discourse on the text add to knowledge, temperance: and to temperance, patience. But these virtues have never been in high favour with revolutionists, which explains why so many revolutions are abortive, and so many ephemeral. It is commonly said that the leading character in "Virgin Soil," Solomin, is a failure because he is not exactly true to life, he is not typically Russian. That criticism seems to me to miss the main point of the work. Of course he is not true to life, of course he is not typically Russian. The typical Russian in the book is Nezhdanov, who is entirely true to life in his uncertainty and in his futility; he does not know whether or not he is in love, and he does not know at the last what the "cause" really is. He fails to understand the woman who accompanies him, he fails to understand Solomin, and he fails to understand himself. So he finally does what so many Russian dreamers have done--he places against his own breast the pistol he had intended for a less dangerous enemy. But he is a dead man long before that. In sharp contrast with him, Turgenev has created the character Solomin, who is not at all "typically Russian," but who must be if the revolutionary cause is to triumph. He seems unreal because he is unreal; he is the ideal. He is the man of practical worth, the man who is not passion's slave, and Turgenev loved him for the same reason that Hamlet loved Horatio. Amid all the vain babble of the other characters, Solomin stands out salient, the man who will eventually save Russia without knowing it. His power of will is in inverse proportion to his fluency of speech. The typical Russian, as portrayed by Turgenev, says much, and does little; Solomin lives a life of cheerful, reticent activity. As the revolution is not at hand, the best thing to do in the interim is to accomplish something useful. He has learned how to labour and to wait. "This calm, heavy, not to say clumsy man was not only incapable of lying or bragging; one might rely on him, like a stone wall." In every scene, whether among the affected aristocrats or among the futile revolutionists, Solomin appears to advantage. There is no worse indictment of human intelligence than the great compliment we pay certain persons when we call them sane. Solomin is sane, and seems