er worship to the 'goddess of truth, art,
and morality.'

They were the best men of their time, full of high aspirations and
knowledge, and their disinterested search after truth was certainly a
noble pursuit. They had full right to look down upon their neighbours
wallowing in the mire of sordid and selfish materialism. But by living
in that spiritual hothouse of dreams, philosophical speculations, and
abstractions, these men unfitted themselves only the more completely for
participation in real life; the absorption in interests having nothing
to do with the life of their own country, estranged them still more from
it. The overwhelming stream of words drained them of the natural sources
of spontaneous emotion, and these men almost grew out of feeling by dint
of constantly analysing their feelings.

Dmitri Rudin is the typical man of that generation, both the victim and
the hero of his time--a man who is almost a Titan in word and a pigmy in
deed. He is eloquent as a young Demosthenes. An irresistible debater,
he carries everything before him the moment he appears. But he fails
ignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an
impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his
eloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an absorbing
passion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more rare, he
would not swerve a hair's-breadth from them for any worldly advantage,
or for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm
spring with him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep emotional
power of human love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, which
he would serve to the last drop of his blood, is for him a body of
foreigners--French, English, Germans--whom he has studied from books,
and whom he has met only in hotels and watering-places during his
foreign travels as a student or as a tourist.

Towards such an abstract, alien humanity, a man cannot feel any real
attachment. With all his outward ardour, Rudin is cold as ice at the
bottom of his heart. His is an enthusiasm which glows without warmth,
like the aurora borealis of the Polar regions. A poor substitute for the
bountiful sun. But what would have become of a God-forsaken land if
the Arctic nights were deprived of that substitute? With all their
weaknesses, Rudin and the men of his stamp--in other words, the men
of the generation of 1840--have rendered an heroic service to their
country. They