to painting on a large canvas, and his strange little tragicomedies of
Russian life, his "Tedious Tales," as he called them, were always to
remain his masterpieces.

In 1890 Tchekoff made a journey to the Island of Saghalien, after which
his health definitely failed, and the consumption, with which he had
long been threatened, finally declared itself. His illness exiled him to
the Crimea, and he spent his last ten years there, making frequent trips
to Moscow to superintend the production of his four important plays,
written during this period of his life.

"The Sea-Gull" appeared in 1896, and, after a failure in St. Petersburg,
won instant success as soon as it was given on the stage of the Artists'
Theatre in Moscow. Of all Tchekoff's plays, this one conforms most
nearly to our Western conventions, and is therefore most easily
appreciated here. In Trigorin the author gives us one of the rare
glimpses of his own mind, for Tchekoff seldom put his own personality
into the pictures of the life in which he took such immense interest.

In "The Sea-Gull" we see clearly the increase of Tchekoff's power of
analysis, which is remarkable in his next play, "The Three Sisters,"
gloomiest of all his dramas.

"The Three Sisters," produced in 1901, depends, even more than most of
Tchekoff's plays, on its interpretation, and it is almost essential to
its appreciation that it should be seen rather than read. The atmosphere
of gloom with which it is pervaded is a thousand times more intense when
it comes to us across the foot-lights. In it Tchekoff probes the depths
of human life with so sure a touch, and lights them with an insight so
piercing, that the play made a deep impression when it appeared. This