Under the Chestnut.

UNDER the chestnut we used to meet;
I often fancy I hear her feet

Tripping along through the rustling grass

Each morn through the meadow she used to passAnd close to the fence would she linger with me, Under the leaves of our chestnut tree.

Ah!-we were happy. Old age and care
Had not marred my brow or whitened my hair;
We vowed to be true for ever and aye,

As we plighted our troth one fair May day;
And little we dreamed of the trouble to be,
Under the shade of our chestnut tree.

But misfortune came. A scandalous word
Broke the pure heart of my gentle bird;
'Twas a cruel lie, but, like a knife
In assassin's hand, it struck at her life;
And never again her fair form might I see
Under the boughs of our chestnut tree.

I went abroad.-In the race for gold,
My hand grew hard and my heart grew cold.
But I cannot forget; and although I know
That my love's asleep where the yew trees grow,
I often in dreams see her smiling on me
Through the white blooms of our chestnut tree.

212

Ivan Turgenieff,

RUSSIAN literature displays more prominently than the literature of any other country the impress of the milieu in which it has been developed. Like Russian civilisation, it is essentially an exotic, and, like an exotic transplanted into a favourable soil, it has sprouted forth with a rapidity and exuberance almost without parallel in the annals of the literary world. Though scarcely more than a century old, it has already passed through the most distinct phases, from the antique classical ode to the modern feuilleton and newspaper article. In the following pages it will be outside our purpose to trace, however briefly, the history of these phases, which may be roughly classified into three periodsthe Præ-Classic, the Classic, and the Romantic. In order, however, to show the connection of the subject of our study with Russian literature in general, we shall indicate some of the chief characteristics of these various periods.

The beginnings of Russian literature coincide with the foundation of the Empire; previously to that epoch, we find only folklore and ballads handed down to posterity by word of mouth. Under Peter the Great, artistic poetry appeared in the shape of direct imitations of foreign models. Like the civilisation and art of the country, literature was imported, and, like that civilisation and art, it took its cue from the prevailing fashion of the Court, and became at different times French, German, classical or romantic, but never national. The critic Belinski, whom his countrymen delight to call the Russian Lessing, sums up the history and character of the literature in the following words: Russian literature is not a native production, but an exotic growth transplanted from a foreign soil. Its whole history consists of continual struggles to break loose from the results of this transplantation, and to take root in the national soil.'

It is a significant fact that the first Russian poet, Prince Kantemir, was a Greek (1708-44), and that the literature began with satire, Kantemir's models being Horace's Juvenal and Boileau. From Kantemir to Schukovski (1783-1852), we have the activity of the præ-classic and classical schools, and the beginnings of comedy and the novel, in which domains the Russians most excel. With Schukovski, who was more a translator than an original writer, we get the beginnings of the romantic school under the influence of Schiller, Goethe, Uhland, and Byron. The

first really great name in Russian literature is Pushkin, who was obviously so far above any of his predecessors or contemporaries that he met with honours out of all proportion to his merits, and his premature death in a duel at the early age of thirty-eight was regarded as a national calamity. Pushkin's work, however, like his life, is irregular and fragmentary. He lacks the strength and patience required for a great work of art, and the numbers of formless and incomplete poems which he has left behind him are a striking example of that incapacity to carry out any great work of art which seems to be inherent in the Slave nature, and of which Slave literature will furnish numerous instances. Pushkin's best work is the novel 'The Captain's Daughter,' a work excellent in every way, and worthy to rank amongst the masterpieces of fiction.

The next reaction was against Romanticism, and was initiated by Nicholas Gogol (1808-52). Gogol, like Dickens, set the example of choosing his subjects from real life, and delineating men and things with realistic minuteness, apart from all æsthetic considerations. As a novelist and dramatist, Gogol has shown himself a fine and acute observer, quick in seizing the ridiculous side of life, and bold in exposing it, but rather too prone to sink into buffoonery and farce. Above all, he is a satirist, pitiless in the handling of his only weapon-irony. Mérimée, whose judgment in these matters is worthy of all respect, has expressed his opinion that Gogol only wanted the medium of a more widelyknown language to obtain a reputation equal to that of the greatest English humourists. Furthermore, the writings of Gogol are amongst the few works of real Russian blood which we can mention. Amongst these are Kryloff's Fables,' Pushkin's novel of The Captain's Daughter,' and especially the songs and poems of Kobzoff, the Russian Burns. But as a rule, Russian literature does not bear the impress of Russian life, nor does it occupy itself with the life of the people-a fact which will not appear strange when it is remembered that, setting aside one or two names, Russian literature emanates from the nobles. The two chief exceptions are Kobzoff, who was a shepherd on the steppe, and Gogol. In talent and culture these two writers fall far behind the aristocrats, but in freshness, vigour, and intimacy of feeling, they are far beyond them. Up to the present, then, we have found in the two fields of comedy and fiction, in which the Russian genius seems most fitted to excel, two names which stand alonePushkin and Gogol.

From the above brief statement of the results of a century's intellectual effort, the reader will perhaps at first thoughts con

ceive no very ardent desire to form a deeper acquaintance with Russian literature, and will perhaps be only too ready to acquiesce in the complaint of the Slavophil leader Khomakoff, who taunted his countrymen with their lack of originality by reminding them of the fact that they had never invented so much as a mousetrap. These results are nevertheless remarkable in their way, and strikingly illustrative of the Slave character. It must be remembered that the first Russian grammar dates only from the middle of the eighteenth century, and that the laws of Russian verse were not fixed till about the same period, both achievements being due to Lomonoff, philologist, mathematician, naturalist, and poet, who inaugurated the classical period of literature. Again, it is an important physiological fact that, so long as the human mind is compelled to strain to the full the receptive faculties, it is unable to engage in creative activity. The same law applies to the collective intelligence of a nation; so long as it is occupied in receiving and assimilating a flood of new ideas, it will not produce anything original. This is exactly the case with Russian literature. With a natural pliancy of mind, and a naturally powerful imitative faculty, which is exemplified, amongst other things, in the facility with which they acquire foreign languages, the Russians became imitators and plagiarists, and produced successful imitations of all kinds and forms of poetical composition, and thereby gained a great command over their own language-a language which is praised on all hands as being one of the richest and most picturesque of European idioms, combining the force and depth of the German with the exquisite music and beauty of form of the Latin languages. At the present moment, then, as far as ideas and form are concerned, Russian literature is on a level with the literatures of other European nations; and as far as the language itself is concerned, it possesses excellences which are all its own. As is the case with American literature, the only want is a thoroughly national writer. We shall now see how far Turgenieff is fitted to supply this want.

Ivan Turgenieff has already written enough to enable us to form an adequate judgment of his work and ability. The first questions we ask are: How does he regard objects? Is he an artist, a moralist, or a satirist? To what is his imagination directed? Imaginations differ not only in their nature and energy, but also in their object and domain. Dickens, for instance, possessed a boundless and passionate imagination, which could spread the veil of poetry over the commonest and vulgarest objects of life and nature, but unfortunately, at least from an artistic point of view, he is lost in the minute and impassioned observation of small

things; and the moral of all his work is-be charitable, and love one another. Now, Turgenieff is essentially an artist. He does not constitute himself a judge of society; he simply paints it as it is, noting its foibles, caprices, and passions with the eye of a subtle and practised observer; and although, as we shall see later on, the number of themes at his disposal is somewhat limited, and his manner of developing them imperfect from the point of view of artistic fiction, yet we have no hesitation in saying that he takes a more general, impartial, and intelligent view of life than any novelist we know. He is essentially a disciple of culture, whose appreciation of what is good and true is universal, but not immoderate or unregulated. Every class of society and every type of humanity— religious fanatics, half-witted persons, and idiots-all find an acute and sympathetic interpreter in Turgenieff. There are, indeed, few novelists, save and except George Eliot, who are interested by so many and diverse things in life as Turgenieff, but it is always as an observer and analyst. His aim always seems to be to find a subject morally interesting, but in so doing he betrays an almost entire lack of inventiveness. Most of his tales are merely sketches sur le vif; there is no plot, péripétie or dénouement. You ask in vain for that poetic justice which every novel-reader naturally looks for, but the author tells you frankly that his knowledge of the people ends where he left them; and as for what became of them, he can tell you absolutely nothing. It will hence be seen that Turgenieff's writings do not fall under the heading of novels in the strict sense of the term. A novel has two conditions: first of all, it must, like a drama, follow out and develop a regular plot or course of action; and secondly, the heroes must not remain fixed and unchanged, but their characters must develop themselves objectively before us in their actions and words. Now, none of Turgenieff's works hitherto fulfil these conditions. A progressive and organised plot seems to be either beyond his powers or outside his purpose. In place of it we find a more or less loosely connected series of sketches and situations; his characters are for the most part passive, and occupy the position of objects rather than of subjects. The tale of Liza; or, a Nest of Nobles,' is a good instance of the difficulty Turgenieff finds in composing a long novel, and of how many episodes and subordinate matters he has to resort to apparently in order to fill his volume. The story begins in the middle, then breaks off suddenly, and goes back in order to give the history of the father, the grandfather, and the greatgrandfather of the hero Lavretsky. Again, to take another instance, 'The Jew' is simply an animated but isolated sketch of an incident in the Russian camp in 1852, containing the materials