D E VOGUE'S well-known book, "Le Roman Rune," was published so

long ago as 1886. It is still well worth reading. In the first place, the literary style is altogether admirable. It is the perfection of French prose, and to read the best French prose is always an intellectual treat. In the second place, the author displays in a marked degree that power of wide generalization which distinguishes the best French writers. Then, again, M. de Vogiie writes with a very thorough knowledge of his subject. He resided for long in Russia. He spoke Russian, and had an intimate acquaintance with Russian literature. He endeavoured to identify himself with Russian aspirations, and, being himself a man of poetic and imaginative temperament, he was able to sympathize with the highly emotional side of the Slav character, whilst, at the same time, he never lost sight of the fact that he was the representative of a civilization which is superior to that of Russia. He admires the eruptions of that volcanic genius Dostoievsky, but, with true European instinct, charges him with a want of " mesure "—the Greek Sophrosyne—which he defines as " l'art d'assujettir ses pensees." Moreover, he at times brings a dose of vivacious French wit to temper the gloom of Russian realism. Thus when he speaks of the Russian writers of romance, who, from 1830 to 1840, " eurent le privilege de faire pleurer les jeunes filles russes," he observes in thorough man-of-the-world fashion, "il faut toujours que quelqu'un false pleurer les jeunes filles, mail le genie n'y est pas necessaire."

When Taine had finished his great history of the Revolu- tion, he sent it forth to the world with the remark that the only general conclusion at which a profound study of the facts had enabled him to arrive was that the true comprehension, and therefore, a fortiori, the government of human beings, and especially of Frenchmen, was an extremely difficult matter. Those who have lived longest in the East are the first to testify to the fact that, to the Western mind, the Oriental habit of thought is well-nigh incomprehensible. The European may do his best to understand, but he cannot cast off his love of symmetry any more than he can change his skin, and unless he can become asymmetrical he can never hope to attune his reason in perfect accordance to the Oriental key. Similarly, it is impossible to rise from a Dermal

of De Vogile's book without a strong feeling of the incom- prehensibility of the Russians.

What, in fact, are these puzzling Russians P They are certainly not Europeans. They possess none of the mental equipoise of the Teutons, neither do they appear to possess that logical faculty which, in spite of many wayward out- bursts of passion, generally enables the Latin races in the end to cast off idealism when it tends to lapse altogether from sanity ; or perhaps it would be more correct to say that, having by association acquired some portion of that Western faculty, the Russians misapply it. They seem to be impelled by a variety of causes—such as climatic and economic influences, a long course of misgovernment, Byzantinism in religion, and an inherited leaning to Oriental mysticism—to distort their reasoning powers, and far from using them, as was the case with the pre-eminently sane Greek genius, to temper the excesses of the imagination, to employ them rather as an oestrus to lash the imaginative faculties to a state verging on madness.

If the Russians are not Europeans, neither are they thorough Asiatics. It may well be, as De Vogiie says, that they have preserved the idiom and even the features of their original Aryan ancestors to a greater extent than has been the case with other Aryan nations who finally settled further West, and that this is a fact of which many Russians boast. But, for all that, they have been inoculated with far too strong a dose of Western culture, religion, and habits of thought to display the apathy or submit to the fatalism which characterizes the conduct of the true Eastern.

If, therefore, the Russians are neither Europeans nor Asiatics, what are they P Manifestly their geographical position and other attendant circumstances have, from an ethnological point of view, rendered them a hybrid race, whose national development will display the most startling anomalies and contradictions, in which the theory and practice derived from the original Oriental stock will be constantly struggling for mastery with an Occidental after-growth. From the earliest days there have been two types of Russian reformers, viz., on the one hand those- who wished that the country should be developed on Eastern lines, and, on the other, those who looked to Western civilization for guidance. De Yoga& says that from the accession of Peter the Great to the death of the Emperor Nicolas—that is to say, for a period of a hundred and fifty years—the government of Russia may be likened to a ship, of which the captain and the principal officers were persistently endeavouring to steer towards the West, while at the same time the whole of the crew were trimming the sails in order to catch any breeze which would bear the vessel Eastward. It can be no matter for surprise that this strange medley should have produced results which are bewildering even to Russians themselves and wellnigh incomprehensible to foreigners. One of their poets has said :—

"On ne comprend pas in Russie avec Is raison,

On ne peut qua croire it in Russie."

One of the most singular incidents of Russian development on which De Vogue has fastened, and which induced him to write this book, has been the predominant influence exercised on Russian thought and action by novels. Writers of romance have indeed at times exercised no inconsiderable amount of influence elsewhere than in Russia. Mrs. Beecher Stowe's epoch-making novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," certainly contributed towards the abolition of slavery in the United States. Dickens gave a powerful impetus to the reform of our law-courts and our Poor Law. Moreover, even in free

England, political writers have at times resorted to allegory in order to prOmulgate their ideas. Swift's Brobdingnagians and Lilliputians furnish a case in point. In France, Voltaire called fictitious Chinamen, Bulgarians, and Avers into existence in order to satirize the proceedings of his own countrymen. But the effect produced by these writings may be classed as trivial compared to that exercised by the great writers of Russian romance. In the works of men like Tourguenef and Dostolevaky the Russian people appear to have recognized, for the first time, that their real condition was truthfully depicted, and that their inchoate aspirations had found sympathetic expression. " Dans le roman, et lit seulement," De Vogiie says, "on trouvera l'histoire de Russie depuis tin demi-siecle."

Such being the case, it becomes of interest to form a correct judgment on the character and careers of the men whom the Russians have very generally regarded as the true interpreters of their domestic facts, and whom large numbers of them have accepted as their political pilots.

The first point to be noted about them is that they are all, for the most part, ultra-realists ; but apparently we may search

their writings in vain for the cheerfulness which at times illumines the pages of their English, or the light-hearted vivacity which sparkles in the pages of their French counter- parts. In Dostoievsky's powerfully written Crime and Punishment all is gloom and horror ; the hero of the tale is a madman and a murderer. To a foreigner these authors seem to present the picture of a society oppressed with an all- pervading sense of the misery of existence, and with the im- possibility of finding any means by which that misery can be alleviated. In many instances, their lives—and still more their deaths—were as sad and depressing as their thoughts. Several of their most noted authors died violent deaths. At thirty-seven years of age the poet Pouchkine was killed in a duel. Lermontof met the same fate at the age of twenty-six. Griboiedof was assassinated at the age of thirty-four. But the most tragic history is that of Dostoievsky, albeit he lived to a green old age, and eventually died a natural death. In 1849 he was connected with some political society, but he does not appear, even at that time, to have been a violent politician. Nevertheless, he and his companions, after being kept for several months in close confinement, were condemned to death. They were brought to the place of execution, but at the last moment, when the soldiers were about to fire, their sentences were commuted to exile. Dostolevsky remained for some years in Siberia, but was eventually allowed to return to Russia. The inhuman cruelty to which he had been subject

naturally dominated his mind and inspired his pen for the remainder of his days.

De Vogue deals almost exclusively with the writings of Pouchkine, Gogol, Dostoievsky, Tourguenef, who was the inventor of the word Nihilism, and the mystic Tolstoy, who was the principal apostle of the doctrine. All these, with the possible exception of Tourguenef, had one characteristic in common. Their intellects were in a state of unstable equilibrium. As poets, they could excite the enthusiasm of the masses, but as political guides they were mere Jack-o'-Lanterns, leading to the deadly swamp of despair. Dostoievsky was in some respects the most interesting and also the most typical of the group. De Vogiie met him in his old age, and the account he gives of his appearance is most graphic. His

history could be read in his face.

" On y lisait mieux que dans le livre, les souvenirs de la maison des morts, les longues habitudes d'effroi, de mefiance et de martyre. Les paupieres, les levres, toutes les fibres de cette face tremblaient do tics nerveux. Quand it s'animait de colere sur une idee, on eilt jure qu'on avait déjà vu cette tkte sur les banes d'une corer criminelle, ou parmi les vagabonds qui mendient aux portes des prisons. A d'autres moments, elle avait la mansuetude triste des vieux saints sur les images slavonnes."

And here is what De Vogii6 says of the writings of this semi- lunatic man of genius :-

" Psychologue incomparable, des (lull (audio des Ames noires on blesskes, dramaturge habile, mais borne aux scenes d'effroi et de pale. . . . Selon qu'on est plus touché par tel ou tel execs de son talent, on pent l'appeler avec justice un philosophe, un apotre, un alike, le consolateur des afilig63 ou le bourrean des esprits tran- gullies, le Jeremie de bagne on le Shakespeare de la ',liaison des sous ; toutes ces appellations seront meritees ; prise iso16ment, aucune ne sera suffisante."

There is manifestly much which is deeply interesting, and also much which is really lovable in the Russian national character. It must, however, be singularly mournful and unpleasant to pass through life burdened with the reflection that it would have been better not to have been born, albeit such sentiments are not altogether inconsistent with the power of deriving a certain amount of enjoyment from living. It was that pleasure-loving old cynic, Madame du Deffand, who said: " Il n'y a qu'un seul malheur, celui d'être ne." Never- theless, the avowed joyousness bred by the laughing tides and purple skies of Greece is certainly more conducive to human happiness, though at times even Greeks, such as Theognis and Palladas, lapsed into a morbid pessimism comparable to that of Tolstoy. Metrodorus, however, more fully represented the true Greek spirit when he sang. " All things are good in life"

(rcivra yap icrOAa. 13:;o). The Roman pagan, Juvenal, gave a fairly satisfactory answer to the question, "Nil ergo optabunt homines ?" whilst the Christian holds out hopes of

that compensation in the next world for the afflictions of the present, which the sombre and despondent Russian philosopher, determined that we shall not find enjoyment in either world, denies to his morose and grief-stricken followers. C.