Then, of course, Tourgeniev has gifts of shrewd characterisation, the power of creating delightful women, gifts of pathos and psychology, and artistic gifts of observation and selection, the whole being always illumined and refined by the essential poetry of his temperament, and the magical manner in which, like an inspired conductor leading an orchestra of delicate wood and wind instruments, he handles the Russian language. But when it comes to judging who has interpreted more truly Russian life as a whole, and who has gazed deepest into the Russian soul and expressed most truly and fully what is there, then I can but repeat that I think he falls far short of Tolstoy, in the one case, and of Dostoievsky, in the other. Judged as a whole, I think he is far excelled, for different reasons, by Tolstoy, Dostoievsky, and by Gogol, who surpasses him immeasurably alike in imagination, humour and truth. I have endeavoured to explain why in various portions of this book. I will not add anything further here, and I only hope that I have made it sufficiently clear that although I admire other Russian writers more than Tourgeniev, I am no image-breaker; and that although I worship more fervently at other altars, I never for a moment intended either to deny or to depreciate the authentic ray of divine light that burns in Tourgeniev’s work.[16] FOOTNOTES: [15] See, for instance, Mr. Frank Harris in his _Shakespeare the Man: His Tragedy_. See footnote, p. 124. [16] The most striking instance I have come across lately of the cult for Tourgeniev in England is in Mr. Frank Harris’ remarkable book on Shakespeare. He illustrates his thesis that Shakespeare could not create a manly character, by saying that Shakespeare could not have drawn a _Bazarov_ or a _Marianna_. Leaving the thesis out of the discussion, it is to me almost incredible that any one could think Tourgeniev’s characters manly, compared with those of Shakespeare. Tourgeniev played a hundred variations on the theme of the minor Hamlet. He painted a whole gallery of little Hamlets. _Bazarov_ attains his strength at the expense of intellectual nihilism, but he is a neuropath compared with Mercutio. And _Bazarov_ is the only one of Tourgeniev’s characters (and Tourgeniev’s acutest critics agree with this,--see Brückner and Vogüé) that has strength. Tourgeniev could no more have created a Falstaff than he could have flown. Where are these manly characters of Tourgeniev? Who are they? Indeed a Russian critic lately pointed out, _à propos_ of Tchekov, that the whole of Russian politics, literature, and art, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, suffered from the misfortune of there being so many such Hamlets and so few Fortinbrases. I am convinced that had Mr. Harris been a Russian, or had Tourgeniev been an Englishman, Mr. Harris would not have held these views. CHAPTER VI DOSTOIEVSKY