ral and physical
atmosphere of Rome, during a too prolonged residence there, eventually
ruined Gogol's mind and health, and extinguished the last sparks of his
genius, especially as even in his school-days he had shown a marked
tendency (in his letters to his mother) to religious exaltation. Now,
under the pressure of his personal tendencies and friendships, and the
clerical atmosphere of Rome, he developed into a mystic and an ascetic
of the most extreme type. He regarded all his earlier writings as sins
which must be atoned for (precisely as Count L. N. Tolstoy regards his
masterpieces at the present time); and nevertheless, his overweening
self-esteem was so flattered by the tremendous success of "The
Inspector" and the first part of "Dead Souls" that he began to regard
himself as a sort of divinely commissioned prophet, on whom it was
incumbent to preach to his fellow-men. It will be seen that the parallel
holds good in this respect also. Extracts from his hortatory letters
which he published proved to Russians that his day was over. His failure
in his self-imposed mission plunged him into the extremes of
self-torment, and his lucid moments grew more and more rare. He
destroyed what he had written of the second part of "Dead Souls," in
the attacks of ecstatic remorse at such profane work which followed. (By
some authorities it is believed that he did this unintentionally,
meaning to destroy an entirely different set of papers.) In 1848 he made
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and went thence to Moscow, where he resided
until his death, becoming more and more extreme in his mysticism and
asceticism. He spent sleepless nights in prayer; he tried to carry
fasting to the extent of living for a week on one of the tiny double
loaves which are used for the Holy Communion in the Eastern Catholic
Church, a feat which it is affirmed can be performed with success, and
even to more exaggerated extent, by practiced ascetics. Gogol died. His
observation was acute; his humor was genuine, natural, infectious; his
realism was of the most vivid description; his power of limning types
was unsurpassed, and it is these types which have entered, as to their
essential ingredients, into the works of his successors, that have
rendered the Russian realistic literary school famous. He wrote only one
complete play besides "The Inspector," and it is still acted
occasionally, but it is not of a sort to appeal to the universal public,
as is his famous c