underlying divine purpose and significance. The absence of this
recognition in Turguenieff's novels is the explanation of them: holding
the creed their author does, he could not have written them otherwise;
and, on the other hand, had his creed been different, he very likely would
not have written novels at all.

The pioneer, in whatever field of thought or activity, is apt to be also
the most distinguished figure therein. The consciousness of being the
first augments the keenness of his impressions, and a mind that can see
and report in advance of others a new order of things may claim a finer
organization than the ordinary. The vitality of nature animates him who
has insight to discern her at first hand, whereas his followers miss the
freshness of the morning, because, instead of discovering, they must be
content to illustrate and refine. Those of our writers who betray
Turguenieff's influence are possibly his superiors in finish and culture,
but their faculty of convincing and presenting is less. Their interest in
their own work seems less serious than his; they may entertain us more,
but they do not move and magnetize so much. The persons and events of
their stories are conscientiously studied, and are nothing if not natural;
but they lack distinction. In an epitome of life so concise as the longest
novel must needs be, to use any but types is waste of time and space. A
typical character is one who combines the traits or beliefs of a certain
class to which he is affiliated--who is, practically, all of them and
himself besides; and, when we know him, there is nothing left worth
knowing about the others. In Shakespeare's Hamlet and Enobarbus, in
Fielding's Squire Western, in Walter Scott's Edie Ochiltree and Meg
Merrilies, in Balzac's Pere Goriot and Madame Marneff, in Thackeray's
Colonel Newcome and Becky Sharp, in Turguenieff's Bazarof and Dimitri
Roudine, we meet persons who exhaust for us the groups to which they
severally belong. Bazarof, the nihilist, for instance, reveals to us the