House_, he will be able to understand and appreciate the character of Dostoievsky and the main ideas which lie at the root of all his books. If he is able to understand and appreciate _The Idiot_, he will be able to understand and appreciate the whole of Dostoievsky’s writings. But should he begin with _Crime and Punishment_, or _The Possessed_, it is possible that he might be put off, and relinquish the attempt; just as it is possible that a man who took up Shakespeare’s plays for the first time and began with _King Lear_, might make up his mind not to persevere, but to choose some more cheerful author. And by so doing he would probably lose a great deal, since a man who is repelled by _King Lear_ might very well be able to appreciate not only _The Merchant of Venice_, but _Henry IV_ and the _Winter’s Tale_. If one were asked to sum up briefly what was Dostoievsky’s message to his generation and to the world in general, one could do so in two words: love and pity. The love which is in Dostoievsky’s work is so great, so bountiful, so overflowing, that it is impossible to find a parallel to it, either in ancient or in modern literature. It is human, but more than human, that is to say, divine. Supposing the Gospel of St. John were to be annihilated and lost to us for ever, although nothing, of course, could replace it, Dostoievsky’s work would go nearer to recalling the spirit of it than any other books of any other European writer.[22] It is the love which faces everything and which shrinks from nothing. It is the love which that saint felt who sought out the starving and freezing beggar, and warmed and embraced him, although he was covered with sores, and who was rewarded by the beggar turning into His Lord and lifting him up into the infinite spaces of Heaven.