poets, Máykov, Polónski, and Fet, then to Nekrásov, who was quite destitute of the poetic gift, then to the artificial and prosaic versifier, Alexéy Tolstoy, then to the monotonous and weak Nádson, then to the quite ungifted Apúkhtin, and after that everything becomes confused and versifiers appear whose name is legion, who do not even know what poetry is, or the meaning of what they write, or why they write.

Another astonishing example is that of the English prose writers. From the great Dickens we descend, first to George Eliot, then to Thackeray, from Thackeray to Trollope, and then already there begin the indifferent fabrications of Kipling, Hall Caine, Rider Haggard, and so forth. The same thing is yet more striking in American literature. After the great galaxy of Emerson, Thoreau, Lowell, Whittier and others, suddenly everything crumbles and there appear beautiful publications with beautiful illustrations, but with stories and novels it is impossible to read because of their lack of any

content.

In our time the ignorance of the educated crowd has reached such a pass that all the really great thinkers, poets, and prose writers, both of ancient times and of the nineteenth century, are considered obsolete, and no longer satisfy the lofty and refined demands of the new men; it is all regarded with contempt or with a smile of condescension. The immoral, coarse, inflated, disconnected babble of Nietzsche is recognised as the last word of the philosophy of our day, and the senseless artificial arrangements of words in various decadent poems united by measure and rhythm, is regarded as poetry of the highest order. In all the theatres pieces are given the meaning of which is unknown to anyone, even to the authors, and novels that have no content and no artistic merit are printed and circulated by millions, under the guise of artistic productions,

"What shall I read to supplement my education?" asks a young man or girl who has finished his or her studies at the high-school.

The same question is put by a man of the people who has learned to read and to understand what he reads, and is seeking true enlightenment.

To answer such questions the naïve attempts made to interrogate prominent men as to which they consider to be the best hundred books is of course insufficient.

Nor is the matter helped by the classification existing in our European society, and tacitly accepted by all, which divides writers into first, second, and third class, and so on-into those of genius, those who are very talented, and those simply good. Such a division, far from helping a true understanding of the excellences of literature, and the search for what is good amid the sea of what is bad, still more confuses this aim. To say nothing of the fact that this division into classes is often incorrect and maintained only because it was made long ago and is accepted by everybody, such a division is harmful, because writers acknowledged to be first-class have written some very bad things, and writers of the lowest class have produced some excellent things. So that a man who believes in the division of writers into classes, and thinks everything by first-class writers to be admirable, and everything by writers of the lower class or those quite unknown, to be weak, will only become confused, and deprive himself of much that is useful and truly enlightening.

Only real criticism can reply to that most important question of our day, put by the youth of the educated class who seeks education, and by the man of the people who seeks enlightment-not such criticism as now exists, which sets itself the task of praising such works as have obtained notoriety, and devising foggy philosophic-esthetic theories to justify them; and not criticism that makes it its task more or

less wittily to ridicule bad works or works proceeding from a different camp; still less such criticism as has functioned and still functions in Russia, and sets itself the aim of deducing the direction of the movement of our whole society from some types depicted by certain writers, or in general of finding opportunities to express particular economic and political opinions under guise of discussing literary productions.

To that enormously important question, "What, of all that has been written, is one to read?" only real criticism can furnish a reply: criticism which, as Matthew Arnold says, sets itself the task of bringing to the front and pointing out to people all that is best both in former and in contemporary writers.

On whether such disinterested criticism, which understands and loves art and is independent of any party, makes its appearance or not, and on whether its authority becomes sufficiently established for it to be stronger than mercenary advertisement, depends, in my opinion, the decision of the question whether the last rays of enlightenment are to perish in our so-called educated European society without having reached the masses of the people, or whether they will revive, as they did in the Middle Ages, and reach the great mass of the people who are now without any enlightenment.

The fact that the mass of the public do not know of this admirable novel of Polenz's any more than they do of many other admirable works which are drowned in the sea of printed rubbish, while senseless, insignificant, and even simply nasty, literary productions are discussed from every aspect, invariably praised, and sold by millions of copies, has evoked in me these thoughts, and I avail myself of the opportunity, which will hardly present itself to me again, of expressing them, though it be but briefly.

1902.

PART XVI

AN AFTERWORD, BY TOLSTOY, TO CHEKHOV'S STORY, "DARLING"

THERE is profound meaning in the story in the Book of Numbers, which tells how Balak, king of the Moabites, sent for Balaam to curse the people of Israel who had come to his borders. Balak promised Balaam many gifts for his service; and Balaam, being tempted, went to Balak, but was stopped on the way by an angel who was seen by his ass but whom Balaam did not see. In spite of this Balaam went on to Balak and went with him up a mountain, where an altar had been prepared with calves and lambs slaughtered in readiness for the imprecation. Balak waited for the curse to be pronounced, but instead of cursing them Balaam blessed the people of Israel.

Ch. XXIII, v. 11. "And Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether.

v. 12. "And he answered and said, Must I not take heed to speak that which the Lord putteth in my mouth?

v. 13. "And Balak said unto him, Come with me unto another place. . . and curse me them from thence."

And he took him to another place, where also altars had been prepared.

But again Balaam, instead of cursing, blessed them.
And so it was a third time.

Chapter XXIV, v. 10. "And Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together; and Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and

thou hast blessed them these three times. Therefore now flee thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; and, lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honour." And so Balaam departed without receiving the gifts, because instead of cursing Balak's enemies he had blessed them.

What happened to Balaam very often happens to true poets and artists. Tempted by Balak's promises of popularity, or by false views suggested to them, the poet does not even see the angel that bars his way whom the ass sees, and he wishes to curse but yet he blesses.

This is just what happened with the true poet and artist Chékhov when he wrote his charming story, Darling.

The author evidently wanted to laugh at this pitiful creature as he judged her with his intellect, not with his heartthis "Darling," who, after sharing Kúkin's troubles about his theatre, and then immersing herself in the interests of the timber business, under the influence of the veterinary surgeon considers the struggle against bovine tuberculosis to be the most important matter in the world, and is finally absorbed in questions of grammar and the interests of the little schoolboy in the big cap. Kúkin's name is ridiculous, and so even is his illness and the telegram announcing his death. The timber-dealer with his sedateness is ridiculous, and the veterinary surgeon and the boy are ridiculous; but the soul of "Darling," with her capacity to devote herself with her whole being to the one she loves, is not ridiculous but wonderful and holy.

I think that in the mind though not in the heart of the author when he wrote Darling, there was a dim idea of the new woman, of her equality of rights with man; of woman, developed, learned, working independently, as well as man if not better, for the benefit of society; of the woman who has raised and insists upon the woman question; and in beginning to write Darling he wanted to show what woman