-day;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way.
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.

Oh, how feeble is man's power,
That, if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste;
Thou art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfill:
But think that we
Are but turned aside to sleep:
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY

(1821-1881)

BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD

[Illustration: FEODOR DOSTOEVSKY]

In certain respects Dostoevsky is the most characteristically national
of Russian writers. Precisely for that reason, his work does not
appeal to so wide a circle outside of his own country as does the work
of Turgenieff and Count L.N. Tolstoy. This result flows not only from
the natural bent of his mind and temperament, but also from the
peculiar vicissitudes of his life as compared with the comparatively
even tenor of their existence, and the circumstances of the time in
which he lived. These circumstances, it is true, were felt by the
writers mentioned; but practically they affected him far more deeply
than they did the others, with their rather one-sided training; and
his fellow-countrymen--especially the young of both sexes--were not
slow to express their appreciation of the fact. His special domain was
the one which Turgenieff and Tolstoy did not understand, and have
touched not at all, or only incidentally,--the great middle class of
society, or what corresponds thereto in Russia.

Through his father, Mikhail Andreevitch Dostoevsky, Feodor
Mikhailovitch belonged to the class of "nobles,"--that is to say, to
the gentry; through his mother, to the respectable, well-to-do
merchant class, which is still distinct from the other, and was even
more so during the first half of the present century; and in personal
appearance he was a typical member of the peasant class. Th