steppes and forests, which seem to indicate the insignificance of man.

This extreme sensitiveness to impression is what has led the Russian
literary genius into Realism; and it is what has produced the greatest
Realists that the history of the novel has seen. The Russian mind is
like a sensitive plate; it reproduces faithfully. It has no more
partiality, no more prejudice than a camera film; it reflects
everything that reaches its surface. A Russian novelist, with a pen in
his hand, is the most truthful being on earth.

To an Englishman or an American, perhaps the most striking trait in
the Russian character is his lack of practical force--the paralysis of
his power of will. The national character among the educated classes
is personified in fiction, in a type peculiarly Russian; and that may
be best defined by calling it the conventional Hamlet. I say the
conventional Hamlet, for I believe Shakespeare's Hamlet is a man of
immense resolution and self-control. The Hamlet of the commentators is
as unlike Shakespeare's Hamlet as systematic theology is unlike the
Sermon on the Mount. The hero of the orthodox Russian novel is a
veritable "L'Aiglon." This national type must be clearly understood
before an American can understand Russian novels at all. In order to
show that it is not imaginary, but real, one has only to turn to
Sienkiewicz's powerful work, "Without Dogma," the very title
expressing the lack of conviction that destroys the hero.

"Last night, at Count Malatesta's reception, I heard by chance these
two words, 'l'improductivite slave.' I experienced the same relief as
does a nervous patient when the physician tells him that his symptoms
are common enough, and that many others suffer from the same disease.
. . . I thought about that 'improductivite slave' all night. He had