ve him his
full name) mingled romanticism and realism at first. But he soon
discovered the true path. He was born and reared in Little Russia, at
Sorotchinsky, Government of Poltava, and was separated only by two
generations from the famous epoch of the Zaporozhian kazaks, who lived
(as their name implies) below the rapids of the Dniepr. He has depicted
their life in his magnificent novel "Taras Bulba." His grandfather had
been the regimental scribe--a post of honor--of that kazak army, and the
spirit of the Zaporozhian kazaks still lingered over the land which was
full of legends, fervent, superstitious piety, and poetry.

Gogol's grandfather, who figures as "Rudy Panko, the bee-farmer," in the
two volumes of Little Russian stories which established his fame,
narrated to him at least one-half of those stories. His father, also,
who represented the modern spirit, was an inimitable narrator of comic
stories, and the talents of father and grandfather rendered their house
the popular center of a very extensive neighborhood.

At school Gogol did not distinguish himself, but he wrote a good deal,
all of an imitative character. After leaving school, it was with
difficulty that he secured a place as copying-clerk, at a wretched
salary, in St. Petersburg. He promptly resigned this when fame came, and
secured the appointment as professor of history. But he was a hopelessly
incompetent professor of history, despite his soaring ambitions, both on
account of his lack of scholarship and the natural bent of his mind. The
literary men who had obtained the position for him had discerned his
immense talent in a perfectly new style of writing; and after failure
had convinced him that heavy, scientific work was not in his line, he
recognized the fact himself, and decided to devote himself to the sort
of work for which nature had intended him. The first volume of his
"Tales from a Farm-house Near Dikanka" appeared at the end of 1831, and
had an immense success. The second volume, "Mirgorod," was equally
successful, all the more so, as it introduced, together with the pure
merriment which had characterized the earlier tales, and the realism
which was his specialty, so to speak, a new element--pathos; "laughter
piercing through a mist of tears." In this style "Old-fashioned
Gentry"[20] and "How Ivan Ivanovitch Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovitch"
are famous examples. Success always turned Gogol's head, and he
immediately aspired to some unde