It may seem strange to the West Europeans, and especially to English readers, to hear of such a rapid succession of different moods of thought in Russian society, sufficiently deep to exercise such an influence upon the novels as has just been mentioned. And yet so it is, in consequence of the historical phase which Russia is living through. There is even a very gifted novelist, BOBORÝKIN (born 1836), who has made it his peculiar work to describe in novels the prevailing moods of Russian educated society in their rapid succession for the last thirty years. The technique of his novels is always excellent (he is also the author of a good critical work, just published, on the influences of Western romance upon the Russian novel). His observations are always correct; his personal point of view is that of an honest advanced progressive; and his novels can always be taken as true and good pictures of the tendencies which prevailed at a given moment amongst the Russian “intellectuals.” For the history of thought in Russia they are simply invaluable; and they must have helped many a young reader to find his or her way amidst the various facts of life; but the variety of currents which have been chronicled by Boborýkin would appear simply puzzling to a Western reader. Boborýkin has been reproached by some critics with not having sufficiently distinguished between what was important in the facts of life which he described and what was irrelevant or only ephemeral, but this is hardly correct. The main defect of his work lies perhaps elsewhere; namely, in that the individuality of the author is hardly felt in it at all. He seems to record the kaleidoscope of life without living with his heroes, and without suffering or rejoicing with them. He has noticed and perfectly well observed those persons whom he describes; his judgment of them is that of an intelligent, experienced man; but none of them has impressed him enough to become part of himself. Therefore they do not strike the reader with any sufficient depth of impression. One of our contemporary authors, also endowed with great talent, who is publishing a simply stupefying quantity of novels, is POTÁPENKO. He was born in 1856, in South Russia, and after having studied music, he began writing in 1881, and although his later novels bear traces of too hasty work, he still remains a favourite writer. Amidst the dark colours which prevail now amongst the Russian novelists, Potápenko is a happy exception. Some of his novels are full of highly comic scenes, and compel the reader to laugh heartily with the author. But even when there are no such scenes, and the facts are, on the contrary, sad, or even tragical, the effect of the novel is not depressing--perhaps because the author never departs from his own point of view of a satisfied optimist. In this respect Potápenko is absolutely the opposite of most of his contemporaries, and especially of Tchéhoff. A. P. TCHÉHOFF