dominating
and distinguishing quality of the work is undeniably something foreign
to both and quite peculiar to itself; something which, for want of
a better term, might be called the quality of the Russian soul. The
English reader familiar with the works of Dostoieffsky, Turgenev, and
Tolstoi, need hardly be told what this implies; it might be defined in
the words of the French critic just named as "a tendency to pity." One
might indeed go further and say that it implies a certain tolerance of
one's characters even though they be, in the conventional sense, knaves,
products, as the case might be, of conditions or circumstance, which
after all is the thing to be criticised and not the man. But pity and
tolerance are rare in satire, even in clash with it, producing in the
result a deep sense of tragic humour. It is this that makes of Dead
Souls a unique work, peculiarly Gogolian, peculiarly Russian, and
distinct from its author's Spanish and English masters.

Still more profound are the contradictions to be seen in the author's
personal character; and unfortunately they prevented him from completing
his work. The trouble is that he made his art out of life, and when in
his final years he carried his struggle, as Tolstoi did later, back into
life, he repented of all he had written, and in the frenzy of a wakeful
night burned all his manuscripts, including the second part of Dead
Souls, only fragments of which were saved. There was yet a third part to
be written. Indeed, the second part had been written and burned twice.
Accounts differ as to why he had burned it finally. Religious remorse,
fury at adverse criticism, and despair at not reaching ideal perfection
are among the reasons given. Again it is said that he had destroyed the
manuscript with the others inadvertently.

The poet Pushkin, who said of Gogol that "behind his laughter you feel
the unseen tears," was his chief friend and inspirer. It was he who
suggested the plot of Dead Souls as well as the plot of the earlier work
The Revisor, which is almost the only comedy in Russian. The importance
of both is their introduction of the social element in Russian
literature, as Prince Kropotkin points out. Both hold up the mirror
to Russian officialdom and the effects it has produced on the national
character. The plot of Dead Souls is simple enough, and is said to have
been suggested by an actual episode.

It was the day of serfdom in Russia, and a man's standing was o