he hated regular work. His definition of happiness is not only a
self-revelation, it will appeal to many humble individuals who are not
writers at all. Being asked for a definition of happiness, he gave it
in two words--"Remorseless Laziness."

It is one of the curious contradictions in human nature that Tolstoi,
so aggressive an apostle of Christianity, was himself so lacking in
the cardinal Christian virtues of meekness, humility, gentleness, and
admiration for others; and that Turgenev, who was without religious
belief of any kind, should have been so beautiful an example of the
real kindly tolerance and unselfish modesty that should accompany a
Christian faith. There is no better illustration in modern history of
the grand old name of gentleman.

His pessimism was the true Slavonic pessimism, quiet, profound, and
undemonstrative. I heard the late Professor Boyesen say that he had
never personally known any man who suffered like Turgenev from mere
Despair. His pessimism was temperamental, and he very early lost
everything that resembled a definite religious belief. Seated in a
garden, he was the solitary witness of a strife between a snake and a
toad; this made him first doubt God's Providence.

He was far more helpful to Russia, living in Paris, than he could have
been at home. Just as Ibsen found that he could best describe social
conditions in Norway from the distance of Munich or Rome, just as the
best time to describe a snowstorm is on a hot summer's day,--for
poets, as Mrs. Browning said, are always most present with the
distant,--so Turgenev's pictures of Russian character and life are
nearer to the truth than if he had penned them in the hurly-burly of
political excitement. Besides, it was through Turgenev that the