Spades_, the first story in the volume, and the likelihood is we shall
enjoy it greatly. "But why is it Russian?" we ask. The answer is, "It
is not Russian." It might have been printed in an American magazine
over the name of John Brown. But, now, take the very next story in the
volume, _The Cloak_. "Ah," you exclaim, "a genuine Russian story,
Surely. You cannot palm it off on me over the name of Jones or Smith."
Why? Because _The Cloak_ for the first time strikes that truly Russian
note of deep sympathy with the disinherited. It is not yet wholly free
from artificiality, and so is not yet typical of the purely realistic
fiction that reached its perfected development in Turgenev and
Tolstoy.

Though Pushkin heads the list of those writers who made the literature
of their country world-famous, he was still a romanticist, in the
universal literary fashion of his day. However, he already gave strong
indication of the peculiarly Russian genius for naturalness or
realism, and was a true Russian in his simplicity of style. In no
sense an innovator, but taking the cue for his poetry from Byron and
for his prose from the romanticism current at that period, he was not
in advance of his age. He had a revolutionary streak in his nature, as
his _Ode to Liberty_ and other bits of verse and his intimacy with the
Decembrist rebels show. But his youthful fire soon died down, and he
found it possible to accommodate himself to the life of a Russian high
functionary and courtier under the severe despot Nicholas I, though,
to be sure, he always hated that life. For all his flirting with
revolutionarism, he never displayed great originality or depth of
thought. He was simply an extraordinarily gifted author, a perfect
versifier, a wondrous lyrist, and a delicious raconteur, endowed with
a grace, ease and power of expression that delighted even the exacting
artistic sense of Turgenev. To him aptly applies the dictum of