e father
was resident physician in the Marie Hospital for the Poor in Moscow,
having entered the civil service at the end of the war of 1812, during
which he had served as a physician in the army. In the very contracted
apartment which he occupied in the hospital, Feodor was born--one of a
family of seven children, all of whom, with the exception of the
eldest and the youngest, were born there--on October 30th (November
11th), 1821. The parents were very upright, well-educated, devoutly
religious people; and as Feodor expressed it many years later to his
elder brother, after their father died, "Do you know, our parents
were very superior people, and they would have been superior even in
these days." The children were brought up at home as long as possible,
and received their instruction from tutors and their father. Even
after the necessity of preparing the two elder boys for a government
institution forced the parents to send them to a boarding-school
during the week, they continued their strict supervision over their
associates, discouraged nearly all friendships with their comrades,
and never allowed them to go into the street unaccompanied, after the
national custom in good families, even at the age of seventeen or
more.

Feodor, according to the account of his brothers and relatives, was
always a quiet, studious lad, and he with his elder brother Mikhail
spent their weekly holidays chiefly in reading, Walter Scott and James
Fenimore Cooper being among their favorite authors; though Russian
writers, especially Pushkin, were not neglected. During many of these
years the mother and children passed the summers on a little estate in
the country which the father bought, and it was there that Feodor
Mikhailovitch first made acquaintance with the beauties of nature, to
which he eloquently refers in after life, and especially with the
peasants, their feelings and temper, which greatly helped him in his
psychological studies and in his ability to endure certain trials
which came upon him. There can be no doubt that his whole training
contributed not only to the literary tastes which the famous author
and his brother cherished throughout their lives, but to the formation
of that friendship between them which was stronger than all others,
and to the sincere belief in religion and the profound piety which
permeated the spirit and the books of Feodor Mikhailovitch.

In 1837 the mother died, and the father took his two eldest s