orld, though these can very easily be
ignored when one reads the ancient epics. Thus did realism have its dawn
in many lands when the era of peace gave men time to define their
position, and when pseudo-classicism had at last palled on their taste,
which had begun to recognize its coldness and inherent falsity.

Naturally, in this new quest of Truth, romanticism and realism were
mingled at first. This was the case with Gogol-Yanovsky, to give him his
full name. But he soon struck out in the right path. He was born and
reared in Little Russia, at Sorotchinsky, government of Poltava. He was
separated by only two generations from the epoch of the Zaporozhian
Kazak army, whose life he has recorded in his famous historical novel
'Taras Bulba,' his grandfather having been regimental scribe of the
Kazaks, an office of honor. The spirit of the Zaporozhian Kazaks still
lingered over the land, which was overflowing with legends, and with
fervent, childlike piety of the superstitious order. At least one half
of the Little-Russian stories which made Gogol's fame he owes to his
grandfather, who appears as Rudiy Panko the Bee-Farmer, in the 'Tales
from a Farm-House near Dikanka.' His father, who represented the modern
spirit, was an inimitable narrator of comic stories, and the talents of
this father and grandfather rendered their house the social centre of a
very wide neighborhood.

At school Gogol did not distinguish himself in his studies, but wrote a
great deal, all of an imitative character, and got up school plays in
emulation of those which he had seen at his own home. His lack of
scholarship made it impossible for him to pursue the learned career of
professor of history, on which he embarked after he had with labor
obtained, and shortly renounced, the career of copying-clerk in St.
Petersburg. His vast but dimly defined ambition to accomplish great
things for his fatherland in some mysterious way, and fame for himself,
equally suffered shipwreck to his mind; though if we consider the part
which the realistic literature he founded has played on the world's
stage, we may count his apparent defeat a solid victory. His brief
career as professor of history at the university was brought about by
his ambition, and through the influence of the literary men whose
friendship he had won by his first 'Little-Russian Tales.' They
recognized his genius, and at last he himself recognized that the new
style of writing which he had created w