In drawing Nezhdanov, Turgenev was on his own ground: the type was very sympathetic to him, for he too felt all his life with despair that the gulf that separated "the people" from those who would lead them, was too great to be successfully crossed; and his own inner life was a turning away from the politicians, who traduced him and watched him with suspicion, to art as a refuge from reality. But in drawing Solomin, the leader coming from the people, Turgenev did not achieve perfect artistic success. The truth is, this type was then a scarce one, and to-day it is not prominent. It is this type of man that Russia needs more than any other, the man of firmness and _character_. Solomin is admirably drawn in the amusing scene of his visit to the Sipyagins (chaps. xxiii.-xxv.); also in his relations with Nezhdanov and Marianna, as their host at the factory; but there is a slight veil drawn over his inner life, and he is never sounded to the depths. Does he present enough of the rich contradictions and human variations of a living man? True, Solomin typifies the splendid sturdiness of the Russian people, the caution and craftiness of the peasant-born and the intellectual honesty of his race; but perhaps these qualities need a more individual soul behind them to combine them into a perfect creation. And in fact the Russian Solomins have not yet left the factories: they are the foremen who do not speak up enough for "the people" in the national life.[22] [22] Passage written in 1896.