whole
of the crew were trimming the sails in order to catch any breeze which
would bear the vessel Eastward. It can be no matter for surprise that
this strange medley should have produced results which are bewildering
even to Russians themselves and well-nigh incomprehensible to
foreigners. One of their poets has said:

On ne comprend pas la Russie avec la raison,
On ne peut que croire a la Russie.

One of the most singular incidents of Russian development on which De
Voguee has fastened, and which induced him to write this book, has been
the predominant influence exercised on Russian thought and action by
novels. Writers of romance have indeed at times exercised no
inconsiderable amount of influence elsewhere than in Russia. Mrs.
Beecher Stowe's epoch-making novel, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, certainly
contributed towards the abolition of slavery in the United States.
Dickens gave a powerful impetus to the reform of our law-courts and our
Poor Law. Moreover, even in free England, political writers have at
times resorted to allegory in order to promulgate their ideas. Swift's
Brobdingnagians and Lilliputians furnish a case in point. In France,
Voltaire called fictitious Chinamen, Bulgarians, and Avars into
existence in order to satirise the proceedings of his own countrymen.
But the effect produced by these writings may be classed as trivial
compared to that exercised by the great writers of Russian romance. In
the works of men like Tourguenef and Dostoievsky the Russian people
appear to have recognised, for the first time, that their real condition
was truthfully depicted, and that their inchoate aspirations had found
sympathetic expression. "Dans le roman, et la seulement," De Voguee says,
"on trouvera l'histoire de Russie depuis un demi-siecle."

Such being the case, it becomes of interest to form a correct judgment
on the character and careers of the men whom the Russians have very
generally regarded as the true interpreters of their domestic facts, and
whom large numbers of them have accepted as their political pilots.

The first point to be noted about them is that they are all, for the
most part, ultra-realists; but apparently we may search their writings
in vain for the cheerfulness which at times illumines the pages of their
English, or the light-hearted vivacity which sparkles in the pages of
their French counterparts. In Dostoievsky's powerfully written _Crime
and Punishment_ all is gloom and horror; the