[8] Matthew Arnold is a notable exception. [9] _Tolstoy as Man and Artist_, pp. 93, 95. This passage is translated from the Russian edition. [10] It should be said that this portrait is so unfair, and yet contains elements of truth so acutely observed, that for some people it spoils the whole book. [11] With the exception of Marianna, one of his most beautiful and noble characters. [12] _Life_, p. 189. [13] _Life_, p. 312. [14] The popular edition of _Paradise Lost_ in Russian prose, with rough coloured pictures, is published by the Tipografia, T. D. Sitin, Piatnitzkaia Oolitza, Moscow. CHAPTER V THE PLACE OF TOURGENIEV In the preceding I have tried very briefly to point out the state of the barometer of public opinion (the barometer of the average educated man and not of any exclusive clique) with regard to Tourgeniev’s reputation in Russia at the present day. That and no more. I have not devoted a special chapter in this book to Tourgeniev for the reasons I have already stated: namely, that his work is better known in England than most other Russian classics, and that admirable appreciations of his work exist already, written by famous critics, such as Mr. Henry James and M. Melchior de Vogüé. There is in England, among people who care for literature and who study the literature of Europe, a perfectly definite estimate of Tourgeniev. It is for this reason that I confined myself to trying to elucidate what the average Russian thinks to-day about Tourgeniev compared with other Russian writers, and to noticing any changes which have come about with regard to the estimate of his work in Russia and in Europe during the last twenty years. I thought this was sufficient. But I now realise from several able criticisms on my study of Tolstoy and Tourgeniev when it appeared in the _Quarterly Review_, that I had laid myself open to be misunderstood. It was taken for granted in several quarters not only that I underrated Tourgeniev as a writer, but that I wished to convey the impression that his reputation was a bubble that had burst. Nothing was farther from my intention than this. And here lies the great danger of trying to talk of any foreign writer from the point of view of that writer’s country and not from that of your own country. You are instantly misunderstood. For instance, if you say Alfred de Musset is not so much admired now in France as he used to be in the sixties, the English reader, who may only recently have discovered Alfred de Musset, and, indeed, may be approaching French poetry as a whole for the first time, at once retorts: “There is a man who is depreciating one of France’s greatest writers!” Now what I wish to convey with regard to Tourgeniev is simply this: