paint; for the first time Europe came into contact
with the Russian soul; and it was the sharpness of this revelation
which accounts for the fact of Turgenev having received in the West an
even greater meed of praise than he was perhaps entitled to.

In Russia, Turgenev attained almost instant popularity. His
_Sportsman's Sketches_ made him known, and his _Nest of Gentlefolk_
made him not only famous but universally popular. In 1862 the
publication of his masterpiece _Fathers and Sons_ dealt his reputation
a blow. The revolutionary elements in Russia regarded his hero,
Bazarov, as a calumny and a libel; whereas the reactionary elements in
Russia looked upon _Fathers and Sons_ as a glorification of Nihilism.
Thus he satisfied nobody. He fell between two stools. This, perhaps,
could only happen in Russia to this extent; and for the same reason as
that which made Russian criticism didactic. The conflicting elements
of Russian society were so terribly in earnest in fighting their
cause, that any one whom they did not regard as definitely for them
was at once considered an enemy, and an impartial delineation of any
character concerned in the political struggle was bound to displease
both parties. If a novelist drew a Nihilist, he must either be a hero
or a scoundrel, if either the revolutionaries or the reactionaries
were to be pleased. If in England the militant suffragists suddenly
had a huge mass of educated opinion behind them and a still larger
mass of educated public opinion against them, and some one were to
draw in a novel an impartial picture of a suffragette, the same thing
would happen. On a small scale, as far as the suffragettes are
concerned, it has happened in the case of Mr. Wells. But, if
Turgenev's popularity suffered a shock in Russia from which it with
difficulty recovered, in Western Europe it went on increasing.
Especially in England, Turgenev became the idol of all that was
eclectic, and admiration for Turgenev a hall-mark of good taste.

In Russia, Turgenev's work recovered from the unpopularity caused by
his _Fathers and Sons_ when Nihilism became a thing of the past, and
revolution took an entirely different shape; but, with the growing up
of new generations, his popularity suffered in a different way and for
different reasons. A new element came into Russian literature with
Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and later with Gorky, and Turgenev's work began
to seem thin and artificial beside the creations of th