[41] It is only just to make exception in favor of Alfonse Daudet. His talent is largely made up of sentiment, and even of sentimentality.—Author’s note.
[42] Nikolai Alekseyévitch Nekrásof, born in December, 1821, editor of the Sovremennik from 1847 till 1866. Afterwards, when the Sovremennik was suppressed, he edited the Otetchestvennui Zapiski till his death, which took place in January, 1877. He was eminently Russia’s popular poet.—N. H. D.
[43] Mikhaïl Yuryevitch Lermontof, the author of the great poem Demon, and other verses inspired by the Caucasus, was born in 1814, and died in 1841.
[44] Feódor Mikhaïlovitch Dostoyevsky was born in 1822 in Moscow, and died in March, 1881. His life reads like a romance. For a short sketch of it, and also for the translation of the scene from his Zapiski iz Mertvava Doma, so praised by Turgénief, see appendix.—N. H. D.
[45] A brilliant Russian lady, now in this country, writes to the translator as follows: “I am glad indeed that you escaped the translation of ‘Crime and Punishment.’ You would never find any readers for such a book in this country. I could never read any of Dostoyevsky’s books through. It made me sick. My nerves could not bear the strain on them. I don’t believe in pathology in literature. And yet another of my American acquaintances, who is thoroughly versed in Russian, ... tried to translate ‘Crime and Punishment,’ but had not time to do it. He says he never read, in any language, any thing so powerful as Prestuplenie i Nakazanie. Generally speaking, your countrymen have too healthy a constitution to appreciate such a novel. Let it turn heads among the pessimists in France and Russia, the natives of effete Europe.”—N. H. D.
[46] This explains, perhaps, why he did not appreciate Nekrásof. Indeed, Turgénief, though his literary judgments are always interesting, must be taken with a grain of salt: like a true poet, he was not a critic. On the other hand, Tchernuishevsky, whose critical judgments Turgénief affected to despise, was a born critic, and his literary prognostications were greatly in advance of his time. See Appendix.—N. H. D.
LYOF N. TOLSTOÏ.