So then, what the paper-writer’s point amounted to was that only _gentlemen_ (or, sententiously, _men_) were worth writing about=or only at the moment when a man becomes a “gentleman” is he interesting, worth noticing, or suitable for portrayal. We all, however, know the simple rules and manifestations of this ideal figure. There is not much left to say on the subject. Ah yes, but there is such and such a one’s ineffable _way_ of being a gentleman!— In London you will meet few educated people who really are willing or able to give Russian books their due. Dostoevsky is a sort of epileptic bore, Tolstoi a wrong-headed old altruistic bore, Gorky a Tramp-stunt bore, Turgenev, even, although in another category, in some way disappointing.—All Russian writers insist on discovering America, opening discussions on matters that our institutions, our position in society, our Franco-English intelligence preclude any consideration of. There is something permanently transcendental and disconcerting about the Slav infant, and he pours his words out and argues interminably, and is such an inveterate drunkard,—as though his natural powers of indecorum and earnestness were not already enough. What really could be said of the Russian is this=Shakespeare is evidently better than any Russian novelist, or more permanently valuable. But the little Russian Grocer could rival Hamlet in vacillation; or any Russian, Shakespeare, in his portrayal of the _machinery_ of the mind. Dostoevsky is not more dark and furious than Shakespeare’s pessimistic figures, Lear, Macbeth, etc. _But we are not Englishmen of Shakespeare’s days._ We are very pleased that in the time of Elizabeth such a national ornament existed. But Shakespeare would be an anachronism to-day. Dostoevsky and Co. were anachronisms as contemporaries of Tennyson and Napoleon III. _Had they been embedded two centuries back in Sixteenth Century Russia_, they would not be read, but would not cause annoyance and be called epileptic bores. Epilepsy would have been all right in those distances.—There is nothing dévoué about epilepsy to-day, any more than there is about a King! I think I have been lucid, if rather long-winded= How I look on these Christian Demi-Gods of the Steppes you know. I like them immensely. For a single brandyish whiff from one of Dostovesky’s mouths, at some vivid angle of turpitude I would give all English literature back to Shelley’s songs. Turgenev’s _Sportsman’s Sketches_ enchant me. They are so sober, delicate and nonchalant; I can think of nothing like them. Gogol’s Tchichikoff is back with Cervantes, Sterne and the others who have not any peers in these days.