ever to leave his country, although life there is so
terrible and hopeless. There is, in this new feeling, an immense joy
and a terrible sadness. The other, the hero of the second story,
having one day expressed to his father the hatred he has for the
bourgeois life that he is leading, leaves his family, who love him,
in order to penetrate the "obscure future."

Evidently, these are people who are fitted to struggle. However,
these strugglers, so infrequent in the work of Andreyev, have, in
spite of all, something sickly and savage in them; instead of real
fighting courage, they possess only extreme audaciousness, mystical
rapture, or nervous exaltation. The "obscure future" toward which
their eyes are turned is not lighted up by the rays of faith and
hope.

The question is whether Andreyev himself believes in the triumph of
the elements of life over the elements of death, the horror of which
he excels in portraying for us. It is in the following manner that
he expresses himself in one of his essays entitled, "Impressions of
the Theatre": "In denying everything, one arrives immediately at
symbols. In refuting life, one is but an involuntary apologist. I
never believe so much in life as when I am reading the father of
pessimism, Schopenhauer! As a result, life is powerful and
victorious!... It is truth that always triumphs, and not falsehood;
it is truth which is at the basis of life, and justifies it. All
that persists is useful; the noxious element must disappear sooner
or later, will inevitably disappear."

* * * * *

What, then, constitutes the essence of Andreyev's talent is an
extreme impressionability, a daring in descriptions of the negative
sides of reality, melancholy moods and the torments of existence. As
he usually portrays general suffering and sickness rather than
definite types, his heroes are mostly incarnations and symbols. The
very titles of some of his stories indicate the abstract character
of his work. Such are: "Silence," "The Thought," and "The Lie." In
this respect he has carried on the work of Poe, whose influence on
him is incontestable. These two writers have in common a refined and
morbid sensibility, a predilection for the horrible and a passion
for the study of the same kind of subjects,--solitude, silence,
death. But the powerful fantasy of the American author, which does
not come in touch with reality, wanders freely through the whole
world and through