as
a victim of _amour-propre_; and he wavered between contempt of the
society around him and a petty resentment against it which took the
shape of scathing and sometimes cruel epigrams. It was this dangerous
_amour-propre_, the fact of his being not only passion's slave, but
petty passion's slave, which made him a victim of frivolous gossip and
led to the final catastrophe.

"In Pushkin," says Soloviev, the philosopher, "according to his own
testimony there were two different and separate beings: the inspired
priest of Apollo, and the most frivolous of all the frivolous children
of the world." It was the first Pushkin--the inspired priest--who
predominated in the latter part of his life; but who was unable to
expel altogether the second Pushkin, the frivolous _Weltkind_, who was
prone to be exasperated by the society in which he lived, and when
exasperated was dangerous. There is one fact, however, which accounts
for much. The more serious Pushkin's turn of thought grew, the more
objective, purer, and stronger his work became, the less it was
appreciated; for the public which delighted in the comparatively
inferior work of his youth was not yet ready for his more mature work.
What pleased the public were the dazzling colours, the sensuous and
sometimes libidinous images of his early poems; the romantic
atmosphere; especially anything that was artificial in them. They had
not yet eyes to appreciate the noble lines, nor ears to appreciate the
simpler and more majestic harmonies of his later work. Thus it was
that they passed _Boris Godunov_ by, and were disappointed in the
later cantos of _Onegin_. This was, of course, discouraging.
Nevertheless, it is laughable to rank Pushkin amongst the
misunderstood, among the Shelleys, the Millets, of Literature and Art;
or to talk of his sad fate. To talk of him as one of the victims of
literature is merely to depreciate him.

He was exiled. Yes: but to the Caucasus, which gave him inspiration:
to his own country home, which gave him leisure. He was censored. Yes:
but the Emperor undertook to do the work himself. Had he lived in
England, society--as was proved in the case of Byron--would have been
a far severer censor of his morals and the extravagance of his youth,
than the Russian Government. Besides which, he won instantaneous fame,
and in the society in which he moved he was surrounded by a band not
only of devoted but distinguished admirers, amongst whom were some of
the hig