unters with all sorts and conditions of extraordinary men are
in their subject-matter as exciting as a novel, and, in their style,
on a level with the masterpieces of Russian prose, through their
subtle psychology, interest, wit, and artistic form.

Herzen lived to see his ideas bearing fruit in the one way which of
all others he would have sought to avoid, namely in "militancy" and
terrorism. When in 1866, an attempt was made by Karakozov to
assassinate Alexander II, and Herzen wrote an article repudiating all
political assassinations as barbarous, the revolutionary parties
solemnly denounced him and his newspaper. _The Bell_, which had
already lost its popularity owing to Herzen's pro-Polish sympathies in
1863, ceased to have any circulation. Thus he lived to see his vast
hopes shattered, the seed he had sown bearing a fruit he distrusted,
his dreams of regeneration burst like a bubble, his ideals exploited
by unscrupulous criminals. He died in 1870, leaving a name which is as
great in Russian literature as it is remarkable in Russian history.

Turning now to the _Slavophiles_, their idea was that Russia was
already in possession of the best possible institutions,--orthodoxy,
autocracy, and communal ownership, and that the West had everything to
learn from Russia. They pointed to the evils arising from the feudal
and aristocratic state, the system of primogeniture in the West, the
higher legal status of women in Russia, and the superiority of a
communal system, which leads naturally to a Consultative National
Assembly with unanimous decisions, over the parliaments and party
systems of the West.

The leader of the Slavophiles was HOMYAKOV, a man of great culture; a
dialectician, a poet, and an impassioned defender of orthodoxy. The
best of his lyrics, which are inspired by a profound love of his
country and belief in it, have great depth of feeling. Besides
Homyakov, there were other poets, such as TYUTCHEV and IVAN AKSAKOV.
Just as the camp of Reform produced in Herzen a supreme writer of
memoirs, that of the Slavophiles also produced a unique memoir writer
in the SERGE AKSAKOV, the father of the poet (1791-1859), who
published his _Family Chronicle_ in 1856, and who describes the life
of the end of the eighteenth century, and the age of Alexander. This
book, one of the most valuable historical documents in Russian, and a
priceless collection of biographical portraits, is also a gem of
Russian prose, exact in its o