Folk, yet there is no denying the force and wit of his hasty epigram.
Dostoievsky is often melodramatic and violent; his "psychology" vague
and tortuous.

And in the letters exchanged between Nietzsche and Georg Brandes, the
latter writes of Dostoievsky after his visit to Russia: "He is a great
poet but a detestable fellow, altogether Christian in his emotions,
and quite _sadique_ at the same time. All his morality is what you
have christened 'Slave's' morality.... Look at Dostoievsky's face:
half the face of a Russian peasant, half the physiognomy of a
criminal, flat nose, little penetrating eyes, under lids trembling
with nervousness, the forehead large and well-shaped, the expressive
mouth telling of tortures without count, of unfathomable melancholy,
of morbid desires, endless compassion, passionate envy. An epileptic
genius whose very exterior speaks of the stream of mildness that fills
his heart, of the wave of almost insane perspicuity that gets into his
head, finally the ambition, the greatness of endeavour, and the envy
that small-mindedness begets.... His heroes are not only poor and
crave sympathy, but are half imbeciles, sensitive creatures, noble
drabs, often victims of hallucinations, talented epileptics,
enthusiastic seekers after martyrdom, the very types that we are
compelled to suppose probable among the apostles and disciples of the
early Christian era. Certainly no mind stands further removed from the
Renaissance."

Of all Dostoievsky's portraits after Sonia, the saintly prostitute,
that of Nastasia Philipovna in The Idiot is the most lifelike and
astounding. The career of this half-mad girl is sinister and tragic;
she is half-sister in her temperamental traits to Paulina in the same
master's admirable story The Gambler. Grushenka in The Brothers
Karamazov is another woman of the demoniac type to which Nastasia
belongs. Then there are high-spirited, hysterical girls such as
Katarina in Karamazov, Aglaia Epanchin in The Idiot, or Liza in The
Possessed (Besi). The border-land of puberty is a favourite theme with
the Russian writer. And consider the splendidly fierce old women,
mothers, aunts, grandmothers (Granny in The Gambler is a full-length
portrait worthy of Hogarth) and befuddled old men--retired from
service in state and army; Dostoievsky is a masterly painter of
drunkards, drabs, and neuropaths. Prince Mushkin (or Myshkin) the
semi-idiot in The Idiot is depicted with surpassing charm. He is