l of Russian writers. With a tender poetical
delicacy, almost worthy of Shakespeare, he sketches his appealing
portraits of young girls. His style is clear--objective--winnowed and
fastidious. He has certain charming old-fashioned weaknesses--as for
instance his trick of over-emphasizing the differences between his bad
and good characters; but there is a clear-cut distinction, and a lucid
charm about his work that reminds one of certain old crayon drawings
or certain delicate water-color sketches. His allusions to natural
scenery are always introduced with peculiar appropriateness and are
never permitted to dominate the dramatic element of the story as
happens so often in other writers.

There is a sad and tender vein of unobtrusive moralizing running
through his work but one is conscious that at bottom he is profoundly
pessimistic and disenchanted. The gaiety of Turgeniev is winning and
unforced; his sentiment natural and never "staled or rung upon." The
pensive detachment of a sensitive and yet not altogether unworldly
spirit seems to be the final impression evoked by his books.

50. GORKI--FOMA GORDYEFF. _Translation published by Scribners_.

Maxim Gorki is one of the most interesting of Russian writers. His
books have that flavour of the soil and that courageous spirit of
vagabondage and social independence which is so rare and valuable a
quality in literature.

"Foma Gordyeff" is, after Dostoievsky's masterpieces, the most
suggestive and arresting of Russian stories. That paralysis of the
will which descends like an evil cloud upon Foma and at the same time
seems to cause the ground to open under his feet and precipitate him
into mysterious depths of nothingness, is at once tragically
significant of certain aspects of the Russian soul and full of
mysterious warnings to all those modern spirits in whom the power of
action is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

For those who have been "fooled to the top of their bent" by the
stupidities and brutalities of the crowd there is a savage
satisfaction in reading of Foma's insane outbursts of misanthropy.

51. TCHEKOFF--SEAGULL. _Tchekoff's plays and short stories are
published by Scribners in admirable translations_.

Tchekoff is one of the gentlest and sweetest tempered of Russian
writers. There is in him a genuine graciousness, a politeness of soul,
an innate delicacy, which is not touched--as such qualities often are
in the work of Turgeniev--w