rrespondence, unveiling all the secrets of their spiritual
life, have been submitted to one.

Every scene, almost every line, opens up new deep horizons, throwing
upon his people some new unexpected light.

The extremely complex and difficult character of the hero of this story,
shows at its highest this subtle psychological many-sidedness. Dmitri
Rudin is built up of contradictions, yet not for a moment does he cease
to be perfectly real, living, and concrete.

Hardly less remarkable is the character of the heroine, Natalya, the
quiet, sober, matter-of-fact girl, who at the bottom is an enthusiastic
and heroic nature. She is but a child fresh to all impressions of life,
and as yet undeveloped. To have used the searching, analytical method
in painting her would have spoiled this beautiful creation. Turgenev
describes her synthetically by a few masterly lines, which show us,
however, the secrets of her spirit; revealing what she is and also what
she might have become under other circumstances.

This character deserves more attention than we can give it here.
Turgenev, like George Meredith, is a master in painting women, and his
Natalya is the first poetical revelation of a very striking fact in
modern Russian history; the appearance of women possessing a strength
of mind more finely masculine than that of the men of their time. By the
side of weak, irresolute, though highly intellectual men we see in his
first three novels energetic, earnest, impassioned women, who take
the lead in action, whilst they are but the man's modest pupils in the
domain of ideas. Only later on, in _Fathers and Children_, does Turgenev
show us in Bazarov a man essentially masculine. But of this interesting
peculiarity of Russian intellectual life, in the years 1840 to 1860,
I will speak more fully when analysing another of Turgenev's novels in
which this contrast is most conspicuous.

I will say nothing of the minor characters of the story before us:
Lezhnyov, Pigasov, Madame Lasunsky, Pandalevsky, who are all excellent
examples of what may be called miniature-painting.

As to the novel as a whole, I will make here only one observation, not
to forestall the reader's own impressions.

Turgenev is a realist in the sense that he keeps close to reality,
truth, and nature. But in the pursuit of photographic faithfulness to
life, he never allows himself to be tedious and dull, as some of the
best representatives of the school think it incumbent