artistic objectiveness,
the living men and women in whom certain ideas, doctrines, and
aspirations were embodied. And he never evolves these ideas and
doctrines from his inner consciousness, but takes them from real life,
catching with his unfailing artistic instinct an incipient movement just
at the moment when it was to become a historic feature of the time. Thus
his novels are a sort of artistic epitome of the intellectual history
of modern Russia, and also a powerful instrument of her intellectual
progress.

III

_Rudin_ is the first of Turgenev's social novels, and is a sort of
artistic introduction to those that follow, because it refers to the
epoch anterior to that when the present social and political movements
began. This epoch is being fast forgotten, and without his novel it
would be difficult for us to fully realise it, but it is well worth
studying, because we find in it the germ of future growths.

It was a gloomy time. The ferocious despotism of Nicholas
I.--overweighing the country like the stone lid of a coffin,
crushed every word, every thought, which did not fit with its narrow
conceptions. But this was not the worst. The worst was that progressive
Russia was represented by a mere handful of men, who were so immensely
in advance of their surroundings, that in their own country they felt
more isolated, helpless, and out of touch with the realities of life
than if they had lived among strangers.

But men must have some outlet for their spiritual energies, and these
men, unable to take part in the sordid or petty pursuits of those around
them, created for themselves artificial life, artificial pursuits and
interests.

The isolation in which they lived drew them naturally together. The
'circle,' something between an informal club and a debating society,
became the form in which these cravings of mind or heart could be
satisfied. These people met and talked; that was all they were able to
do.

The passage in which one of the heroes, Lezhnyov, tells the woman he
loves about the circle of which Dmitri Rudin and himself were members,
is historically one of the most suggestive. It refers to a circle of
young students. But it has a wider application. All prominent men of
the epoch--Stankevitch, who served as model to the poetic and
touching figure of Pokorsky; Alexander Hertzen, and the great critic,
Belinsky--all had their 'circles,' or their small chapels, in which
these enthusiasts met to off