his own tongue. Now if an Englishman writes a successful book,
thousands of Russians, Germans, and others will read it in English;
the necessity of translation is not nearly so great. It is interesting
to compare the world-wide appeal made by the novels of Turgenev,
Dostoevski, and Tolstoi with that made by Thackeray and George Eliot,
not to mention Mr. Hardy or the late Mr. Meredith.


The combination of the great age of Russia with its recent
intellectual birth produces a maturity of character, with a wonderful
freshness of consciousness. It is as though a strong, sensible man of
forty should suddenly develop a genius in art; his attitude would be
quite different from that of a growing boy, no matter how precocious
he might be. So, while the Russian character is marked by an extreme
sensitiveness to mental impressions, it is without the rawness and
immaturity of the American. The typical American has some strong
qualities that seem in the typical Russian conspicuously absent; but
his very practical energy, his pride and self-satisfaction, stand in
the way of his receptive power. Now a conspicuous trait of the Russian
is his humility; and his humility enables him to see clearly what is
going on, where an American would instantly interfere, and attempt to
change the course of events.* For, however inspiring a full-blooded
American may be, the most distinguishing feature of his character is
surely not Humility. And it is worth while to remember that whereas
since 1850, at least a dozen great realistic novels have been written
in Russian, not a single completely great realistic novel has ever
been written in the Western Hemisphere.

*It is possible that both the humility and the melancholy of the
Russian character are partly caused by the climate, and the vast