These, of course, are only accessory productions, artistic enough, but of a lighter character. Many of the tales unfortunately suffer from a hackneyed use of situations, materials, and ideas, suggestive of the hack writer. Gorki's cheap sentiment, and maudlin pity, often result in clap-trap and padding which are foreign to the artist proper. But this is the effect of his predilection for individuals of forcible character. Gorki is always partial to despotic characters. And here and there he has succeeded in creating men, who take life into their own hands, instead of letting it take them in hand. It was inevitable that a writer who makes positive affirmations about life should receive a peculiar welcome in Russia, where a gloomy pessimism has obtained the preponderance in literature. Gorki's conception of life is expressed in the words of the engine-driver Nil, in "The Bezemenovs" . . . a sympathetic figure, even if he be something of a braggart. Nil, who is almost the only cheerful and courageous man amid a handful of weaklings and degenerates, says: "I know that Life is hard, that at times it seems impossibly harsh and cruel, and I loathe this order of things. I know that Life is a serious business, even if we have not got it fully organised, and that I must put forth all my power and capacity in order to bring about this organisation. And I shall endeavour with all the forces of my soul to be steadfast to my inward promptings: to push my way into the densest parts of life, to knead it hither and thither, to hinder some, to help on others. It is _this_ that is the joy of life!" . . . [Illustration: Love-scene between Polja and Nil (_Act III. of "The Bezemenovs"_)] Words like these were bound to have a stimulating and invigorating effect after the despondency of the preceding epoch. This new spirit, this new man, gripped his contemporaries in full force. The result would undoubtedly have been even more striking if Gorki's heroes were not invariably tainted with vestiges of the old order. They are, indeed, men of action. A totally different life pulsates in Gorki's works; we are confronted with far more virile characters than in the works of other Russian authors. Even the engine driver Nil, however, fails to relieve any one of the sufferers from his troubles. He removes Polja confidently enough from her surroundings--but only leaves the greater darkness behind him. Even he is as yet unable to transform the conditions of life--and he is therefore stigmatised by a little of the Russian bluster.