transcendental "romantics"--German, and still more French--on whom
nothing produces any effect; if there were an earthquake, if all France
perished at the barricades, they would still be the same, they would not
even have the decency to affect a change, but would still go on singing
their transcendental songs to the hour of their death, because they are
fools. We, in Russia, have no fools; that is well known. That is what
distinguishes us from foreign lands. Consequently these transcendental
natures are not found amongst us in their pure form. The idea that they
are is due to our "realistic" journalists and critics of that day, always on
the look out for Kostanzhoglos and Uncle Pyotr Ivanitchs and foolishly
accepting them as our ideal; they have slandered our romantics, taking
them for the same transcendental sort as in Germany or France. On the
contrary, the characteristics of our "romantics" are absolutely and directly
opposed to the transcendental European type, and no European
standard can be applied to them. (Allow me to make use of this word
"romantic"--an old-fashioned and much respected word which has
done good service and is familiar to all.) The characteristics of our
romantic are to understand everything, TO SEE EVERYTHING AND TO SEE IT
OFTEN INCOMPARABLY MORE CLEARLY THAN OUR MOST REALISTIC MINDS SEE IT; to
refuse to accept anyone or anything, but at the same time not to despise
anything; to give way, to yield, from policy; never to lose sight of a useful
practical object (such as rent-free quarters at the government expense,
pensions, decorations), to keep their eye on that object through all the
enthusiasms and volumes of lyrical poems, and at the same time to preserve
"the sublime and the beautiful" inviolate within them to the hour of
their death, and to preserve themselves also, incidentally, like some precious
jewel wrapped in cotton wool if only for the benefit of "the sublime
and the beautiful." Our "romantic" is a man of great breadth and the
greatest rogue of all our rogues, I assure you .... I can assure you from
experience, indeed. Of course, that is, if he is intelligent. But what am I