ote and taught I knew not what, received large
remuneration for my efforts with the pen, and lived loosely, gaily, and
extravagantly.

Thus I was one of the hierarchs of the literary faith, and for a
considerable time was undisturbed by any doubts as to its soundness; but
when three years had been thus spent, serious suspicions entered my
mind. I noted that the devotees of this apparently infallible principle
were at variance amongst themselves, for they disputed, deceived,
abused, and swindled each other. And many were grossly selfish, and most
immoral.

Disgust supervened, both with myself and with mankind in general. My
error now was that though my eyes were opened to the vanity and delusion
of the position, yet I retained it, imagining that I, as thinker, poet,
teacher, could teach other men while not at all knowing what to teach.
To my other faults an inordinate pride had been added by my intercourse
with these _litterateurs_. That period viewed retrospectively seems to
me like one of a kind of madness. Hundreds of us wrote to teach the
people, while we all abused and confuted one another. We could teach
nothing, yet we sent millions of pages all over Russia, and we were
unspeakably vexed that we seemed to gain no attention whatever, for
nobody appeared to listen to us.

_II.--Groping in Darkness_

I travelled in Europe at this period, before my marriage, still
cherishing in my mind the idea of general perfectibility, which was so
popular at that time with the "Intelligentia." Cultured circles clung to
the theory of what we call "progress," vague though are the notions
attaching to the term. I was horrified with the spectacle of an
execution in Paris, and my eyes were opened to the fallacy underlying
the theory of human wisdom. The doctrine of "progress" I now felt to be
a mere superstition, and I was further confirmed in my conviction by the
sad death of my brother after a painful illness of a whole year.

My brother was kind, amiable, clever, and serious; but he passed away
without ever knowing why he had lived or what his death meant for him.
All theories were futile in the face of this tragedy. Returning to
Russia I settled in my rural home and began to organise schools for the
peasants, feeling real enthusiasm for the enterprise. For I still clung
to a great extent to the idea of progress by development. I thought that
though highly cultured men all thought and taught differently and agreed
about not