humourist. But though there was always a smile on his lips, it was a
tender one, and his sympathy with suffering often brought his laughter
near to tears.

This delicate and original genius was at first subjected to harsh
criticism, which Tchekoff felt keenly, and Trigorin's description in
"The Sea-Gull" of the trials of a young author is a cry from Tchekoff's
own soul. A passionate enemy of all lies and oppression, he already
foreshadows in these early writings the protest against conventions and
rules, which he afterward put into Treplieff's reply to Sorin in "The
Sea-Gull": "Let us have new forms, or else nothing at all."

In 1884 he took his degree as doctor of medicine, and decided to
practise, although his writing had by now taken on a professional
character. He always gave his calling a high place, and the doctors in
his works are drawn with affection and understanding. If any one spoke
slightingly of doctors in his presence, he would exclaim: "Stop! You
don't know what country doctors do for the people!"

Tchekoff fully realised later the influence which his profession had
exercised on his literary work, and sometimes regretted the too vivid
insight it gave him, but, on the other hand, he was able to write: "Only
a doctor can know what value my knowledge of science has been to me,"
and "It seems to me that as a doctor I have described the sicknesses of
the soul correctly." For instance, Trigorin's analysis in "The Sea-Gull"
of the state of mind of an author has well been called "artistic
diagnosis."

The young doctor-writer is described at this time as modest and grave,
with flashes of brilliant gaiety. A son of the people, there was in his