His stories are not stories of incident, but stories of character. The extraordinary interest that they arouse is confined almost entirely to our interest in his men and women; the plot, the narrative, the events are always secondary; he imitated no other novelist, and no other can imitate him. For this very reason, he can never enjoy the popularity of Scott or Dumas; he will always be caviare to the general. Henry James said of him, that he was particularly a favourite with people of cultivated taste, and that nothing cultivates the taste better than reading him. It is a surprising proof of the large number of readers who have good taste, that his novels met with instant acclaim, and that he enjoyed an enormous reputation during his whole career. After the publication of his first book, "A Sportsman's Sketches," he was generally regarded in Russia as her foremost writer, a position maintained until his death; his novels were translated into French and English very soon after their appearance, and a few days after his death, the London "Athenaeum" remarked, "Europe has been unanimous in according to Turgenev the first rank in contemporary literature." That a man whose books never on any page show a single touch of melodrama should have reached the hearts of so many readers, proves how interesting is the truthful portrayal of human nature. George Brandes has well said that the relation of Turgenev to his own characters is in general the same relation to them held by the reader. This may not be the secret of his power, but it is a partial explanation of it. Brandes shows that not even men of genius have invariably succeeded in making the reader take their own attitude to the characters they have created. Thus, we are often bored by persons that Balzac intended to be tremendously interesting; and we often laugh at persons that Dickens intended to draw our tears. With the single exception of Bazarov, no such mistake is possible in Turgenev's work; and the misunderstanding in that case was caused principally by the fact that Bazarov, with all his powerful individuality, stood for a political principle. Turgenev's characters are never vague, shadowy, or indistinct; they are always portraits, with every detail so subtly added, that each one becomes like a familiar acquaintance in real life. Perhaps his one fault lay in his fondness for dropping the story midway, and going back over the previous existence or career of a certain personage. This is the only notable blemish on his art. But even by this method, which would be exceedingly irritating in a writer of less skill, additional interest in the character is aroused. It is as though Turgenev personally introduced his men and women to the reader, accompanying each introduction with some biographical remarks that let us know why the introduction was made, and stir our curiosity to hear what the character will say. Then these introductions are