know by our own
experience, or by that of others, that the friendly relations of two
such families are greatly endangered by proximity of habitation. To
live in the same street is not advisable; to occupy adjoining houses is
positively dangerous; and to live under the same roof is certainly fatal
to prolonged amity. There may be the very best intentions on both sides,
and the arrangement may be inaugurated by the most gushing expressions
of undying affection and by the discovery of innumerable secret
affinities, but neither affinities, affection, nor good intentions can
withstand the constant friction and occasional jerks which inevitably
ensue.

Now the reader must endeavour to realise that Russian peasants, even
when clad in sheep-skins, are human beings like ourselves. Though they
are often represented as abstract entities--as figures in a table
of statistics or dots on a diagram--they have in reality "organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions." If not exactly "fed with the
same food," they are at least "hurt with the same weapons, subject to
the same diseases, healed by the same means," and liable to be irritated
by the same annoyances as we are. And those of them who live in large
families are subjected to a kind of probation that most of us have never
dreamed of. The families comprising a large household not only live
together, but have nearly all things in common. Each member works, not
for himself, but for the household, and all that he earns is expected to
go into the family treasury. The arrangement almost inevitably leads to
one of two results--either there are continual dissensions, or order is
preserved by a powerful domestic tyranny.

It is quite natural, therefore, that when the authority of the landed
proprietors was abolished in 1861, the large peasant families almost all
crumbled to pieces. The arbitrary rule of the Khozain was based on, and
maintained by, the arbitrary rule of the proprietor, and both naturally
fell together. Households like that of our friend Ivan were preserved
only in exceptional cases, where the Head of the House happened to
possess an unusual amount of moral influence over the other members.

This change has unquestionably had a prejudicial influence on the
material welfare of the peasantry, but it must have added considerably
to their domestic comfort, and may perhaps produce good moral results.
For the present, however, the evil consequences are by far the most
promi