[19] See Anabaptism from its Rise at Zwickau to its Fall at Münster, 1521-1536, by Richard Heath (Baptist Manuals, I, 1895).
[20] The Christian Teaching, Introduction, p. vi. In another similar passage he adds Marcus Aurelius and Lao-tse to the above-mentioned teachers.
[21] What is my Belief, ch. X, p. 145 of Tchertkoff’s edition of Works prohibited by Russian Censorship. On pp. 18 and 19 of the little work, What is Religion and What is its Substance. Tolstóy expresses himself even more severely about “Church Christianity.” He also gives us in this remarkable little work his ideas about the substance of religion altogether, from which one can deduct its desirable relations to science, to synthetic philosophy, and to philosophical ethics.
PART V
Goncharóff, Dostoyévskiy, Nekrásoff
CHAPTER V
GONCHARÓFF—DOSTOYÉVSKIY—NEKRASOFF
Goncharóff—Oblómoff—The Russian Malady of Oblómoffdom—Is it exclusively Russian?—The Precipice—Dostoyévskiy—His first Novel—General Character of his Work—Memoirs from a Dead House—Down-trodden and Offended—Crime and Punishment—The Brothers Karamázoff—Nekrasoff—Discussions about his Talent—His Love of the People—Apotheosis of Woman—Other Prose-writers of the same Epoch—Serghéi Aksákoff—Dahl—Ivan Panaeff—Hvoschinskaya (V. Krestovskiy-pseudonyme). Poets of the same Epoch—Koltsoff—Nikitin Pleschéeff. The Admirers of Pure Art: Tutcheff—A. Maykoff—Scherbina—Polonskiy—A. Fet—A. K. Tolstóy—The Translators.
GONCHARÓFF.
Goncharóff occupies in Russian literature the next place after Turguéneff and Tolstóy, but this extremely interesting writer is almost entirely unknown to English readers. He was not a prolific writer and, apart from small sketches, and a book of travel (The Frigate Pallas), he has left only three novels: A Common Story (translated into English by Constance Garnett), Oblómoff, and The Precipice, of which the second, Oblómoff, has conquered for him a position by the side of the two great writers just named.
In Russia Goncharóff is always described as a writer of an eminently objective talent, but this qualification must evidently be taken with a certain restriction. A writer is never entirely objective—he has his sympathies and antipathies, and do what he may, they will appear even through his most objective descriptions. On the other hand, a good writer seldom introduces his own individual emotions to speak for his heroes: there is none of this in either Turguéneff or Tolstóy. However, with Turguéneff and Tolstóy you feel that they live with their heroes, that they suffer and feel happy with them—that they are in love when the hero is in love, and that they feel miserable when misfortunes befall him; but you do not feel that to the same extent with Goncharóff. Surely he has lived through every feeling of his heroes, but the attitude he tries to preserve towards them is an attitude of strict impartiality—an attitude, I hardly need say, which, properly speaking, a writer can never maintain. An epic repose and an epic profusion of details certainly characterise Goncharóff’s novels; but these details are not obtrusive, they do not diminish the impression, and the reader’s interest in the hero is not distracted by all these minutiæ, because, under Goncharóff’s pen, they never appear insignificant. One feels, however, that the author is a person who takes human life quietly, and will never give way to a burst of passion, whatsoever may happen to his heroes.