ar to be largely gifted with the power of graphic
description, of placing the scenes of nature, or the living figures that
people them, vividly before us--he loves rather to indulge, even to excess,
mystical or passionate thoughts that are born in his own breast, and to
adorn them with garlands woven from the flowers of his fancy; but these
flowers are of native growth, the indigenous productions of the Russian
soil. His images often sound to our ears homely, sometimes even familiar
and mean, but they may be dignified in their native dress. He has no
lively perception of the beauties of external nature; his raptures are
reserved for the wonders of art, for what the human mind can create or
achieve; and, curiously enough, it is architecture that seems to excite in
him the greatest enthusiasm. In illustration of this feeling, we must
still extract an eloquent discourse on the life of the artist, which the
author puts into the mouth of Fioraventi Aristotle--a passage of much
feeling, and, we fear, of too much truth:--

"Thou knowest not, Antony, what a life is that of an artist! While
yet a child, he is agitated by heavy incomprehensible thoughts: to
him the sphynx, Genius, hath already proposed its enigmas; in his
bosom the Promethean vulture is already perched, and groweth with his
growth. His comrades are playing and making merry; they are preparing
for their riper years recollections of childhood's days of
paradise--childhood, that never can be but once: the time cometh, and
he remembereth but the tormenting dreams of that age. Youth is at
hand; for others 'tis the time of love, of soft ties, of revelry--the
feast of life; for the artist, none of these. Solitary, flying from
society, he avoideth the maiden, he avoideth joy; plunging into the
loneliness of his soul, he there, with indescribable mourning, with
tears of inspiration, on his knees before his Ideal, imploreth her to
come down upon earth to his frail dwelling. Days and nights he
waiteth, and pineth after unearthly beauty. Woe to him if she doth
not visit him, and yet greater woe to him if she doth! The tender
frame of youth cannot bear her bridal kiss; union with the gods is
fatal to man; and the mortal is annihilated in her embrace. I speak
not of the education, of the mechanic preparation. And here at every
step the Material enchaineth thee, buildeth up barriers before thee:
marketh a formless vein upon thy block of