1. I have chosen the four writers mentioned on the programme not so
much because they are the four greatest names of Russian literature as
because they best represent the point of view from which these lectures
are to be delivered. For what Nature is to God, that is Literature unto
the Soul. God ever strives to reveal himself in Nature through its
manifold changes and developing forms. And the human soul ever strives
to reveal itself in literature through its manifold changes and
developing forms. But while to see the goal of the never resting
creativeness of God is not yet given unto man, it is given unto mortal
eyes to behold the promised land from Pisgah, toward which the soul
ever strives, and which, let us hope, it ever is approaching. For the
soul ever strives onward and upward, and whether the struggle be called
progress of species, looking for the ideal, or union with God, the
thing is the same. It is of this journey of the soul heavenward that
literature is the record, and the various chases of literary development
in every nation are only so many mile-posts on the road.
2. In its childhood the human soul only exists; it can hardly yet be
said to live; but soon it becomes conscious of its existence, and the
first cry it utters is that of joy. Youth is ever cheerful, and in its
cheer it sings. Youth sings to the stars in the sky, to the pale moon
and to the red moon, to the maiden's cheeks and to the maiden's fan;
youth sings to the flower, to the bee, to the bird, and even to the
mouse. And what is true of the individual is equally true of the race.
The earliest voices in the literature of any nation are those of song.
In Greece Homer, like his favorite cicada, chirps right gladly, and in
England Chaucer and Shakespeare are first of all bards. In France and
Germany it is even difficult to find the separate prominent singers, for
there the whole nation, whatever hath articulate voice in it, takes to
singing with its troubadours and minnesingers. In its earliest stages
then the soul sings, not in plaintive regretful strain, but birdlike
from an overflowing breast, with rejoicings and with mirth.
3. But the time soon arrives when the soul recognizes that life means
something more than mere existence, something more than mere enjoyment,
something more even than mere happiness; the time soon arrives when the
soul recognizes that by the side of the Prince of Light there also dwells
the Prince of Darkness; that not only is there in the Universe a great
God the Good, but also a great Devil the Evil; and with the impetuosity
and impassionateness of youth it gives itself up to lamentation, to
indignation. The heart of the poet, the singer, is now filled with woe;
he departs and leaves behind him only the lamenter, the reproacher, the
rebel. Job succeeds Miriam, Æschylus succeeds Homer, Racine and Corneille
take the place of the troubadours, and Byron succeeds Shakespeare. This
is the stage of fruitless lamentation and protest.
4. But unlike the bear in winter, the soul cannot feed long on its own
flesh, and the time soon comes when it beholds the wasteful restlessness
of mere indignation, of mere protest. It sees that to overcome the ill
it must go forth manfully and do battle, and attack the enemy in his
most vulnerable spots, instead of fruitlessly railing against him.
Literature then becomes full of purpose; becomes aggressive, attacks now
the throne, now the church, now the law, now the institution, now the
person. Tragedy is followed by comedy, sentiment by satire; Æschylus is
followed by Aristophanes, Horace is followed by Juvenal and Martial;
Racine is followed by Voltaire, and Byron by Dickens. This is the stage
of war.
5. But neither is it given unto the soul to remain long in hatred, for
hatred is the child of Darkness; the goal of the soul is Love, since
Love is the child of Light. And the spirit of man soon discovers that
the powers of darkness are not to be conquered by violence, by battle
against the men possessed of them, but by faith in the final triumph of
the Good, by submission to Fate, by endurance of what can be borne, by
reverence towards God, and lastly by mercy towards men. The soul thus
discovers its true haven; it lays down the sword; its voice calls no
longer to strife, but to peace; it now inspires and uplifts, and Greek
literature ends with Socrates and Plato, Rome with Marcus Aurelius and
Seneca, England with Carlyle and Ruskin, America with Emerson, and
Germany with Goethe. Letters indeed go on in England, in America, and
in Germany, but the cycle is completed; and higher than Plato, Marcus
Aurelius, Goethe, Emerson, Carlyle, and Ruskin, the soul need not seek
to rise. Whatever comes henceforth can add naught new to its life; the
tones may indeed vary, but the strain must remain the same.
6. The eye of the body never indeed beholds the perfect circle; however
accurately the hand draw, the magnifying glass quickly reveals zigs and
zags in the outline. Only unto the eye of the spirit it is given to
behold things in their perfection, and the soul knows that there does
exist a perfect circle, magnifying glass or no magnifying glass. So
history shows indeed many an irregularity in the law just laid down
for the development of the soul, but the law is still there in its
perfection, and Russian literature furnishes the best illustration of
this law. Every literature has to go through these four stages, but
nowhere have they been passed with such regularity as in Russia.
Accordingly we have in due order of time Pushkin the singer, Gogol
the protester, Turgenef the warrior, who on the very threshold of his
literary career vows the oath of a Hannibal not to rest until serfdom
and autocracy are abolished, and lastly we have Tolstoy the preacher,
the inspirer.
7. How this law has operated on Russian soil, in Russian hearts, is the
purpose of these lectures to show. For while the laws of the spirit are
ever the same in essence, the character of their manifestation varies
with time and place, just as in Nature the same force appears in the
firmament as gravitation when it binds star unto star, as attraction
when it binds in the molecule atom unto atom, and in man as love when
it binds heart unto heart. The phenomena therefore, natural to all
literature, we shall also find here, but modified by the peculiar
character of the people.
8. And the first characteristic of the Russian spirit is that it has no
_originating_ force. In the economy of the Aryan household, of which the
Slavic race is but a member, each member has hitherto had a special
office in the discharge of which its originating force was to be spent.
The German has thus done the thinking of the race, the American by his
inventive faculty has done the physical comforting of the race, the
Frenchman the refining of the race, the Englishman the trading of the
race; but the Russian has no such force peculiar to him. The office of
the Slavonic race has hitherto been passive, and its highest distinction
has hitherto been solely either to serve as a sieve through which the
vivifying waters of European thought shall pour upon the sleeping body
of Asia, or as a dead wall to stem the wild devastating flow of Asiatic
barbarism upon European civilization. The virtue of the Slavonic race is
thus first of all passivity; and as the virtue of a pipe is to be smooth
and hollow, so the virtue of the Russian is first of all passive
receptivity.
9. Look not therefore for creative originality in Russian literature.
There is not a single form of literary development that is native to the
Russian soil, not a single contribution to philosophy, to art, to
letters, the form of which can be said to have been born on Russian
soil. Its literary forms, like its civilization (or that which passes
for its civilization), have been borrowed bodily from the west. But as
action and reaction are always equal, so this very limitation of the
Russian national character has been the source of many virtues of
spiritual life, which Europe and America might well learn to acquire,
all the more now when western thought has matured to such ripeness as
to be nigh decay.
10. And herein you have the explanation of the powerful hold Russian
literature has suddenly gained upon thoughtful hearts. Wiseacres,
marvelling at the meaning of the outburst of enthusiasm for Russian
literature, mutter "fashionable craze," and henceforth rest content.
But, O my friends, believe it not. Craze will go as craze has come, but
the permanent force in Russian literature which now stirs the hearts of
men is not to be disposed of by gossip at tea-table. Fashion can hug a
corpse for a while, and proclaim its ghastly pallor to be delicacy of
complexion, and the icy touch of its hand to be reserved culture, but it
cannot breathe the breath of Life into what is dead. And the present
enthusiasm is kept awake, rest assured, not because of fashion, but in
spite of it. Craze will surely go, but with it will not go that which
appeals in Russian literature to all earnest souls, because of its
permanent elements over which fashion has no control.
11. For the Russians have elements in their writings quite notable in
themselves at all times, but more notable now when letters everywhere else
seem to run to waste and ruin,--elements without which all writing must
become in due course of time so much blacking of paper, and all speech
only so much empty sound; elements without which all writing is sent
off, not weighted in one corner, that it may, like unto the toy, after
never so much swaying to and fro, still find its upright equilibrium,
but rather like unto the sky-rocket, sent up into empty space whizzing
and crackling, to end in due time in total explosion and darkness.
12. And of these elements the first is Intensity. What the Russian lacks
in originality he makes up in strength; what he lacks in breadth he
makes up in depth. The Russian is nothing if not intense. When he loves,
he loves with all his heart; when he adores, he adores with all his
soul; when he submits, he submits with all his being; when he rebels,
he rebels with all his force. When Peter decides to introduce western
civilization into his empire, it must be done in a day and throughout
the country at once; and if human nature does not yield quickly enough
to the order for change from above, soldiers must march about the
streets with shears in their hands to cut off the forbidden beard and
long coat. When tyrant Paul dies by the hands of assassins, a scene of
joy at the deliverance takes place which is only possible on Russian
streets: strangers fly into each other's arms, embrace, kiss each other,
amid gratulations for the relief. When the foreign invader is to be
repelled, no sacrifice is too great for the Russian; and he does not
shrink even from setting fire to his own Mecca, the beloved mother
Moscow. When Alexander II. undertakes to liberate Russia, he crowds all
reforms upon it at once,--emancipation of serfs, trial by jury, local
self-government, popular education. And when an autocratic reaction
arrives, it comes with the same storm-like rapidity and ubiquity. From a
free country Russia is changed in one night, through the pistol-shot of
a Karakozof, into a despotic country, just as if some Herman had waved
his magic wand, and with his "presto, change," had conjured up the dead
autocracy into life again. When finally aristocratic youth is fired with
the noble desire to help the ignorant peasant, home, family, station,
fortune, career, all is forsaken, and youth goes forth to live with
peasant, like peasant, that it may the better instruct him. This
intensity which thus permeates all life of Russia is likewise visible
in its literature; but while in practical life titanesqueness is a
drawback, in literature, which is the nation's ideal life, it finds
its most fruitful field. Hence the Russian writer may oft, indeed, be
mistaken, frequently even totally wrong, but he is never uninteresting,
because always powerful.
13. In times when feebleness has become so feeble as even to invent
a theory, making thinness of voice, weakness of stamina, and general
emasculation literary virtues; when intellect can find adequate interest
only in the chess-puzzles of a Browning, and the sense of humor can find
adequate sustenance only in the table-leaping antics of a Mark Twain,
and the conscience can be goaded into remorse only by the sight of
actual starvation, it is well to turn to these Russians and learn that
one of the secrets of their overwhelming power is their intensity.
14. Gogol, for instance, never sets you laughing explosively. Such
laughter is only on the surface; but you can hardly read a page of his
without feeling a general sense of mirth suffused as it were through
every limb, and the cheek can laugh no more than the spinal column. So,
too, Turgenef never sets you a weeping, but the sadness he feels he
sends from his pages, circulating through your blood, and while the eye
will not indeed drop a tear, for such grief is likewise mostly on the
surface, the breast will heave a sigh. And Tolstoy never fires you to go
forth and do a particularly good deed; he never, like Schiller, sends
you off to embrace your friend, but on laying down his book you feel a
general discontent with yourself, and a longing for a nobler life than
yours is takes possession of the soul.
15. This is the result of the all-absorbing, all-devouring native
intensity of the Russian spirit.
16. And this intensity accounts for the suddenness with which the
Russian spirit has blazed forth on the horizon, so that the successive
stages of development are scarcely visible. The darkness which overcast
the letters of Russia before Pushkin disappears not slowly, but the
sky is lighted up suddenly by innumerable lights. Stars of the first
magnitude stud it, now here, now there, until the bewildered observer
beholds not twinkling points but shining luminaries. In scarcely half a
century Russia has brought forth Pushkin, Lermontof, Gogol, Dostoyefsky,
Turgenef, Tolstoy; and as the institutions of Western Europe became
russified by the mere wave of an imperial hand, so Russian literature
became modernized as if by the wave of a magic wand.
17. This national characteristic of intensity gives Russian literature a
hot-house aspect. Its atmosphere is not only fragrant, but oppressively
fragrant; and as in America after the civil war generals and colonels
were almost too numerous for social comfort, so in Russia great authors
are in well-nigh painful abundance, and the student is embarrassed not
with the difficulty of selecting from the midst of poverty, but with the
difficulty of selecting from the midst of riches. And not only is its
aspect that of a hot-house, but its very character has been affected.
Such is the intensity of the national spirit of Russia, that it can do
well but one thing at a time, and all its strength can go into only one
literary form at a time. From 1800 to 1835 Russian literature is like a
field on a midsummer evening, full of all manner of musical sound, and
whatever hath articulate voice does nothing but sing. Batushkof sings,
Pushkin sings, Lermontof sings, Koltsof sings, Turgenef versifies, and
Zhukofsky, like our own poetasters, balances himself acrobatically in
metrical stanzas; and where the gift of song is wanting, it shrieks and
screeches, but always, observe, in well-balanced rhymes. Then comes the
era of the thick periodicals, and whatever is gifted in Russia, for a
time speaks only through them; lastly comes realism with an intensity
unparalleled elsewhere, and everybody writes in prose, and only one kind
of prose at that,--fiction. Not a drama, not a history, not an essay,
not a philosophical treatise has yet grown on Russian soil; all the
energy of Russia has gone into fiction, and Russia is not the country to
produce, when it does produce masters, only one at a time.
18. But the great danger of intensity is extravagance; and Napoleon,
who knew men well, could with justice say that the roots of Genius and
Insanity are in the same tree, and indeed few are the writers of genius
who have successfully coped with extravagance. It is the peculiar fortune
however of the Russian writers to be comparatively free from it; and
their second great virtue is the one which formed the cardinal virtue of
a nation from whom we have still much to learn, the Temperance of the
Greeks.
19. And of the virtues of which Temperance, Measuredness, is the parent,
there are two, of which the first is Moderation and the second is
Modesty: moderation with reference to things outside of the soul;
modesty with reference to things inside of the soul. And for the highest
example of moderation, you must read Turgenef's account of Nezhdanof's
suicide in "Virgin Soil," or his account of the drowning of Marya
Pavlovna in "Back Woods;" the first of which I will take the liberty to
read to you.
"Nezhdanof sprang up from the sofa; he went twice round the room,
then stopped short for a minute lost in thought; suddenly he shook
himself, took off his 'masquerading' dress, kicked it into the
corner, fetched and put on his former clothes.
"Then he went up to the three-legged small table and took from the
drawer two sealed envelopes, and a small object which he put into
his pocket, but the envelopes he left on the table.
"He then leaned down and opened the door of the stove.... The stove
contained a heap of ashes. This was all that was left of Nezhdanof's
papers and private book of verses.... He had burned them all during
the night. But in this same stove, leaning against one of the walls,
was Marianne's portrait, Markelof's gift. Evidently Nezhdanof had
not had the courage to burn this portrait with the rest; he took it
out carefully and put it on the table by the side of the sealed
papers.
"Then with a determined movement of the hand he seized his cap and
started for the door ... but he stopped, came back, and went into
Marianne's chamber.
"After standing motionless for a moment, he cast a look about him,
and approaching the young girl's narrow small bed--he bent down and
with one suppressed sob he placed his lips, not on the pillow, but
on the foot of the bed.... Then he stood up straight, drew his cap
over his forehead, and flung himself from the room.
"Without meeting any one either in the entry, or on the staircase,
or down below, he slipped out into the little enclosure. The day was
cloudy, the sky lowering; a little damp breeze bent the tops of the
grass-blades and gently waved the leaves on the trees. The mill
rattled and buzzed less than usual at this hour; an odor of
charcoal, of tar, and of soot came from the yard.
"Nezhdanof cast around him a scrutinizing, distrustful glance, then
he walked up to the old apple-tree which had attracted his attention
on the day of his arrival, when he first looked out of his chamber
window. The trunk of this apple-tree was covered with dry moss, its
bare and knotty branches, with but a few little green and brown
leaves, stuck out here and there, raised themselves crookedly
towards the heavens, like the suppliant arms of an old man, with
bent elbows. Nezhdanof stood firmly on the dark earth which
surrounded the foot of the apple-tree, and drew from his pocket the
small object which he had previously taken from the table
drawer.--Then he looked attentively at the windows of the little
wing.
"'If some one should see me at this moment,' he thought, 'perhaps I
should put off--'
"But nowhere was a single human face to be seen.... Everything
seemed dead, everything turned itself away from him, drawing itself
away from him forever, leaving him alone to the mercy of fate. Only
the factory was sending forth its rank odor, its dull uproar, and a
cold rain began to fall in fine drops, pricking like needles.
"Then Nezhdanof looked up, through the twisted branches of the tree
beneath which he was standing, at the gray, heavy, wet, indifferent,
blind sky; he gaped, shrugged his shoulders, and said to himself,
'After all there is nothing else I can do. I cannot return to
Petersburg, to prison.' He threw down his cap, and with the
premature feeling of a kind of agonizing, not wholly unpleasant yet
powerful tension of the nerves, he put the mouth of the revolver
against his breast and pulled the trigger....
"Something gave him a sudden blow not even a very hard one ... but
already he lay on his back, trying to make out what had happened and
how it came that he had just seen Tatyana.... He wished to call to
her and say, 'Oh, there is something not right;' but already he is
speechless, and over his face into his eyes, over his forehead into
his brain, there rushes a whirlwind of green smoke, and a flat
something oppressively heavy crushed him forever to the ground.
"Nezhdanof was not mistaken in supposing he saw Tatyana; just as he
pulled the trigger, she came to one of the windows of the little
wing and descried him beneath the apple-tree. She had scarcely time
to ask herself, 'What is he doing under the apple-tree bareheaded in
such weather as this?' when he fell backward like a sheaf of wheat;
but she felt at once that something tragic had happened; and she
rushed downstairs, out into the enclosure.... She ran up to
Nezhdanof.... 'Alexis Dimitritsh, what is the matter?' But darkness
had already come over him. Tatyana stooped over him, and saw
blood....
"'Paul!' she shouted in a strange voice, 'Paul!'
"In a few moments Marianne, Solomin, Paul, and two factory workmen
were already in the enclosure; Nezhdanof was at once raised, carried
into his chamber, and placed on a sofa where he had spent his last
night.
"He lay on his back, his half-closed eyes remained fixed, his face
was lead-colored; he breathed slowly and laboriously, catching each
breath as if choking. Life had not yet left him.
"Marianne and Solomin stood on each side of the couch, almost as
pale as Nezhdanof himself. Both were stunned, startled, crushed,
especially Marianne, but they were not surprised. 'Why did not we
foresee this?' each thought; and yet at the same time it seemed to
them that they ... yes, they had foreseen it. When he said to
Marianne, 'Whatever I do, I warn you of it beforehand, you will not
be surprised,' and again, when he had spoken of the two men that
existed in him, who can yet not live together, did not something
like a presentiment stir in her? Why then did she not stop at that
moment and reflect upon these words and this presentiment? Why does
not she dare now to look at Solomin, as if he were her accomplice
... as if he too were suffering remorse? Why was the feeling of
infinite pity, of desperate regret with which Nezhdanof inspired her
mingled with a kind of terror, with shame, with remorse? Might she
perhaps have saved him? Why does neither of them dare to utter a
word? They hardly dare to breathe; they wait; what are they waiting
for, Great God?
"Solomin sent for a surgeon, although there was of course no hope;
upon the small black bloodless wound Tatyana had put a sponge with
cold water, and moistened his hair also with cold water and vinegar;
suddenly Nezhdanof ceased choking and made a slight movement.
"'He is coming to himself,' muttered Solomin.
"Marianne knelt beside the sofa.... Nezhdanof looked at her ... up
to this moment his eyes had been fixed, like those of every dying
person.
"'Ah! I am still ... alive,' he said with a hardly audible voice.
'Unsuccessful as ever.... I am detaining you.'
"'Aliosha,' Marianne contrived to groan out.
"'Yes ... soon.... You remember, Marianne, in my ... poem ...
"Surround me with flowers." ... Where then are the flowers?... But
you are here instead ... there, in my letter....' Suddenly he began
to shiver from head to foot.
"'Ah, here she is.... Give ... each other ... your hands--in my
presence.... Quick ... give--'
"Solomin raised Marianne's hand, her head lay on the sofa, face
down, close to the very wound. As for Solomin, he stood straight and
rigid, black as night.
"'So, that is right ... so.'
"Nezhdanof began to gasp again, but this time in an entirely strange
way; his chest rose and his sides contracted ... he made evident
efforts to place his hand on their clasped hands, but _his_ were
already dead.
"'He is going,' murmured Tatyana, who was standing near the door;
and she began to cross herself. The sobbing breaths became rarer,
shorter; he was still seeking Marianne with his look, but a kind of
threatening milky whiteness already veiled his eyes from within.
"'Good!...' this was his last word.
"He now was no longer, but the hands of Solomin and Marianne were
still joined across his breast."
20. From this pure melancholy and measured sadness, go to Dickens and
read his account of the death of little Nell, or to George Eliot and
read her account of Maggie Tulliver's death. I venture to think you will
need no comment of mine to perceive the difference; and the difference,
I regret to say, is not in favor of the English masters.
21. But not only in the field of pathos is this moderation of the
Russian striking; in the field of description of nature, of which both
the English and the Russian are so fond in their literature, the two
literatures offer abundant material for comparison, and I will permit
myself to quote to you a passage from Dickens for the purpose of
illustrating how the Russians go to work with a similar subject:
"It was small tyranny for a respectable wind to go wreaking its
vengeance on such poor creatures as the fallen leaves; but this wind
happening to come up with a great heap of them just after venting
its humor on the insulted Dragon, did so disperse and scatter them
that they fled away, pell-mell, some here, some there, rolling over
each other, whirling round and round upon their thin edges, taking
frantic flights into the air, and playing all manner of gambols in
the extremity of their distresses. Nor was this enough for its
malicious fury, for not content with driving them abroad, it charged
small parties of them and hunted them into the wheelwright's saw-pit
and below the planks and timbers in the yard, and scattering the
sawdust in the air, it looked for them underneath, and when it did
meet with any, whew! how it drove them on and followed at their
heels!
"The scared leaves only flew the faster for all this, and a giddy
chase it was; for they got into unfrequented places, where there was
no outlet, and where their pursuer kept them eddying round at his
pleasure, and they crept under the eaves of the houses, and clung
tightly to the sides of hay-ricks, like bats, and tore in at open
chamber windows, and cowered close to hedges, and, in short, went
everywhere for safety."--_Martin Chuzzlewit_, ii.
22. Of which passage the principal vice is that it does not describe to
you the wind, the thing Dickens really saw, but only what Dickens
thought he saw. He gives you not the original but a translation, and a
translation, as you will presently see, far from faithful; he gives you
not the scene, but the effect of the scene on his mind; and as Dickens
started out to produce not a faithful picture, but a startling emotion,
his scene is accordingly gaudy, theatrical, false. For observe, the wind
is a respectable wind, and yet afflicted with pettiness of tyranny, and
it wreaks vengeance; and this vengeance-wreaking wind does not come up
flying, as you would expect of a wind, but it _happens_ to come up
leisurely, evidently taking an after-dinner stroll, as is becoming a
respectable wind, which finds it not inconsistent with respectability to
be vengeance-wreaking. And this respectable wind, without any motive,
suddenly transforms himself into a malicious wind. Observe, he is no
longer revengeful, for revenge implies something wicked done to the
wind, which rouses him, while malice has no such excuse, for malice
acts without cause, except from native depravity, while revenge acts
always with cause. And this upright, leisurely strolling wind, now
vengeance-wreaking, now malicious, again without sufficient cause
changes his erect posture and kneels down, bends his head under the
timbers, and the wind becomes a--peeper!
23. A conception like this may be very fine, it may be very poetic, and
even very dramatic, but it is not true, for Dickens never _saw_ the wind
thus, else his metaphors would have been less mixed. What we see truly
with our imagination we see clearly, and the metaphors born of clear
sight are ever pure. Hence such description is extravagant because
untrue; hence such description is demoralizing because extravagant,
immoderate.