Still another extremely talented writer, who, unfortunately, has begun to produce too rapidly for his own interest, is Ignaty Nikolaevitch Potapenko (1856), the son of an officer in a Uhlan regiment, and of a Little Russian peasant mother. His father afterwards became a priest—a very unusual change of vocation and class—and the future writer acquired intimate knowledge of views and customs in ecclesiastical circles, which he put to brilliant use later on. A delicate humor is the characteristic feature of his work, as can be seen in his best writings, such as "On Active Service"[49] and "The Secretary of His Grace (the Bishop)."

The former is the story of a talented and devoted young priest, who might have obtained an easy position in the town, among the bishop's officials, with certain prospect of swift promotion. He resolutely declines this position, and requests that he may be assigned to a village parish, where he can be "on active service." Every one regards the request as a sign of an unsettled mind. After much argument he prevails on his betrothed bride's parents to permit the marriage (he cannot be ordained until he is married), and hopes to find a helpmeet in her. The rest of the story deals with his experiences in the unenviable position of a village priest, where he has to contend not only with the displeasure of his young wife, but with the avarice of his church staff, the defects of the peasants, the excess of attention of the local gentlewoman, and financial problems of the most trying description. It ends in his wife abandoning him, and returning with her child to her father's house, while he insists on remaining at his post, where, as events have abundantly proved, the ministrations of a truly disinterested, devout priest are most sadly needed. It is impossible to convey by description the charm and gentle humor of this book.

But acclaimed on all sides, by all classes of society, as the most talented writer of the present day, is the young man who writes under the name of Maxim Gorky (Bitter). The majority of the critics confidently predict that he is the long-expected successor of Count L. N. Tolstoy. This gifted man, who at one stroke, conquered for himself all Russia which reads, whose books sell with unprecedented rapidity, whose name passes from mouth to mouth of millions, wherever intellectual life glows, and has won an unnumbered host of enthusiastic admirers all over the world, came up from the depths of the populace.

"Gorky" Alexei Maximovitch Pyeshkoff was born in Nizhni Novgorod in 1868 or 1869. Socially, he belongs to the petty burgher class, but his grandfather, on the paternal side, was reduced from an officer to the ranks, by the Emperor Nicholas I., for harsh treatment of the soldiers under his command. He was such a rough character that his son (the author's father) ran away from home five times in the course of seven years, and definitively parted from his uncongenial family at the age of seventeen, when he went afoot from Tobolsk to Nizhni Novgorod, where he apprenticed himself to a paper-hanger. Later on he became the office-manager of a steamer company in Astrakhan. His mother was the daughter of a man who began his career as a bargee on the Volga, one of the lowest class of men who, before the advent of steam, hauled the merchandise-laden barks from Astrakhan to Nizhni Novgorod, against the current. Afterwards he became a dyer of yarns, and eventually established a thriving dyeing establishment in Nizhni.

Gorky's father died of cholera at Astrakhan when the lad was four years old. His mother soon married again, and gave the boy to his grandfather, who had him taught to read and write, and then sent him to school, where he remained only five months. At the end of that time he caught smallpox, and his studies were never renewed. Meanwhile his mother died, and his grandfather was ruined financially, so Gorky, at nine years of age, became the "boy" in a shoeshop, where he spent two months, scalded his hands with cabbage soup, and was sent back to his grandfather. His relations treated him with hostility or indifference, and on his recovery, apprenticed him to a draftsman, from whose harshness he promptly fled, and entered the shop of a painter of holy pictures. Next he became scullion on a river steamer, and the cook was the first to inculcate in him a love of reading and of good literature. Next he became gardener's boy; then tried to get an education at Kazan University, under the mistaken impression that education was free. To keep from starving he became assistant in a bakery at three rubles a month; "the hardest work I ever tried," he says; sawed wood, carried heavy burdens, peddled apples on the wharf, and tried to commit suicide out of sheer want and misery.[50] "Konovaloff" and "Men with Pasts"[51] would seem to represent some of the experiences of this period, "Konovaloff" being regarded as one of his best stories. Then he went to Tzaritzyn, where he obtained employment as watchman on a railway, was called back to Nizhni Novgorod for the conscription, but was not accepted as a soldier, such "holy" men not being wanted. He became a peddler of beer, then secretary to a lawyer, who exercised great influence on his education. But he felt out of place, and in 1890 went back to Tzaritzyn, then to the Don Province (of the Kazaks), to the Ukraina and Bessarabia, back along the southern shore of the Crimea to the Kuban, and thence to the Caucasus. The reader of his inimitable short stories can trace these peregrinations and the adventures incident to them. In Tiflis he worked in the railway shops, and in 1892 printed his first literary effort, "Makar Tchudra," in a local newspaper, the "Kavkaz." In the following year, in Nizhni Novgorod, he made acquaintance with Korolenko, to whom he is indebted for getting into "great literature," and for sympathy and advice. When he published "Tchelkash," in 1893, his fate was settled. It is regarded as one of the purest gems of Russian literature. He immediately rose to honor, and all his writings since that time have appeared in the leading publications. Moreover, he is the most "fashionable" writer in the country. But he enjoys something more than mere popularity; he is deeply loved. This is the result of the young artist's remarkable talent for painting absolutely living pictures of both persons and things. The many-sidedness of his genius—for he has more than talent—is shown, among other things, by the fact that he depicts with equal success landscapes, genre scenes, portraits of women. His episode of the singers in "Foma Gordyeeff" (pp. 217-227) is regarded by Russian critics as fully worthy of being compared with the scenes for which Turgeneff is renowned. His landscape pictures are so beautiful that they cause a throb of pain. But, as is almost inevitable under the circumstances, most of his stories have an element of coarseness, which sometimes repels.

In general, his subject is "the uneasy man," who is striving after absolute freedom, after light and a lofty ideal, of which he can perceive the existence somewhere, though with all his efforts he cannot grasp it. We may assume that in this they represent Gorky himself. But although all his heroes are seeking the meaning of life, no two of them are alike. His characters, like his landscapes, grip the heart, and once known, leave an ineffaceable imprint. Although he propounds problems of life among various classes, he differs from the majority of people, in not regarding a full stomach as the panacea for the poor man. On the contrary (as in "Foma Gordyeeff," his most ambitious effort), he seems to regard precisely this as the cause of more ruin than the life of "the barefoot brigade," the tramps and stepchildren of Dame Fortune, with whom he principally deals. His motto seems to be "Man shall not live by bread alone." And because Gorky bears this thought ever with him, in brain and heart, in nerves and his very marrow, his work possesses a strength which is almost terrifying, combined with a beauty as terrifying in its way. If he will but develop his immense genius instead of meddling with social and political questions, and getting into prison on that score with disheartening regularity, something incalculably great may be the outcome. It is said that he is now banished in polite exile to the Crimea. If he can be kept there or elsewhere out of mischief, the Russian government will again render the literature of its own country and of the world as great a service as it has already more than once rendered in the past, by similar means.

In the '70's and '80's Russian society was seized with a mania for writing poetry, and a countless throng of young poets made their appearance. No book sold so rapidly as a volume of verses. But very few of these aspirants to fame possessed any originality or serious worth. Poetry had advanced not a single step since the days of Nekrasoff and Shevtchenko, so far as national independence was concerned.

The most talented of the young poets of this period was Semen Yakovlevitch Nadson (1862-1887). His grandfather, a Jew who had joined the Russian Church, lived in Kieff. His father, a gifted man and a fine musician, died young. His mother, a Russian gentlewoman, died at the age of thirty-one, of consumption. At the age of sixteen, Nadson fell in love with a young girl, and began to write poetry. She died of quick consumption shortly afterwards. This grief affected the young man's whole career, and many of his poems were inspired by it. He began to publish his poems while still in school, being already threatened with pulmonary trouble, on account of which he had been sent to the Caucasus at the expense of the government, where he spent a year. In 1882 he graduated from the military school, and was appointed an officer in a regiment stationed at Kronstadt. There he lived for two years, and some of his best poems belong to this epoch: "No, Easier 'Tis for Me to Think that Thou Art Dead," "Herostrat," "Dreams," "The Brilliant Hall Has Silent Grown," "All Hath Come to Pass," and so forth. He retired from the military service in 1883, being already in the grasp of consumption. His poems ran through ten editions during the five years which followed his death, and still continue to sell with equal rapidity, so remarkable is their popularity. He was an ideally poetical figure; moreover, he charms by his flowing, musical verse, by the enthralling elegance and grace of his poetical imagery, and genuine lyric inspiration. All his poetry is filled with quiet, meditative sadness. It is by the music of his verse and the tender tears of his feminine lyrism that Nadson penetrates the hearts of his readers. His masterpiece is "My Friend, My Brother," and this reflects the sentiment of all his work.[52] Here is the first verse:

My friend, my brother, weary, suffering brother, Whoever thou may'st be, let not thy spirit fail; Let evil and injustice reign with sway supreme O'er all the tear-washed earth. Let the sacred ideal be shattered and dishonored; Let innocent blood flow in stream— Believe me, there cometh a time when Baal shall perish And love shall return to earth.

Another very sincere, sympathetic, and genuine, though not great poet, also of Jewish race, is Semen Grigorievitch Frug (1860-1916), the son of a member of the Jewish agricultural colony in the government of Kherson. He, like Nadson, believes that good will triumph in the end, and is not in the least a pessimist.

Quite the reverse are Nikolai Maximovitch Vilenkin (who is better known by his pseudonym of "Minsky" from his native government), and Dmitry Sergyeevitch Merezhkovsky (1865) who, as a poet, is generally bombastic. His novels are better.

There are many other good, though not great, contemporary writers in Russia, including several women. But they hardly come within the scope of this work (which does not aim at being encyclopedic), as neither their work nor their fame is likely to make its way to foreign readers who are unacquainted with the Russian language. For those who do read Russian there are several good handbooks of contemporary literature which will furnish all necessary information.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. How was Russia influenced by the romantic movement in western Europe?

2. Describe the character of the romances of the first period of the fifties.

3. What important historical works appeared at this time?

4. What popular novels were written by Danilevsky?

5. What were the chief works of Melnikoff, and why are they not likely to be translated into English?

6. Describe the career and influence of Lyeskoff.

7. Why was the fame of Markovitch's work short-lived?

8. What difficulties did Uspensky encounter in his early attempts at writing?

9. Describe the effect produced by his "Hard Labor" and "An Eccentric Master."

10. What views of society did Zlatovratsky express in his writings?

11. Why did Ryeshetnikoff's "The Inhabitants of Podlipovo" become widely popular?

12. Give an account of the experiences of Saltykoff.

13. How did he make use of the material gathered during his exile?

14. How did his writings contribute some new words to the Russian language?

15. What qualities does he show in "The Story of How One Peasant Maintained Two Generals"?

16. Give the chief events in the life of Tolstoy.

17. What characteristics of style did he show in his earliest writings?

18. How is he "subjective" in delineating his characters?

19. Why was his genius not at first appreciated?

20. What was his theory of life?

21. What change came into his life in the seventies?

22. How did this affect his writings?

23. How did his experience with famine sufferers affect his views?

24. What were Garshin's views of people in general?

25. How do his books bear out his theories?

26. What facts in Korolenko's life have influenced his literary development?

27. What characteristics does Tchekoff show in his short stories?

28. What is the story of Potapenko's "On Active Service"?

29. Give the leading events of Gorky's career.

30. How is his many-sided genius shown?

31. What ideals are expressed in his work?

32. Why has Nadson's poetry such a firm hold on the popular mind?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Danilevsky: Mirovitch. The Princess Tarakanova.

Potapenko: A Russian Priest. A Father of Six. An Occasional Holiday.

Maxim Gorky: Orloff and His Wife. Foma Gordyeeff. (Translated by I. F. Hapgood.)

L. N. Tolstoy: All of his works are available in English translations. There are several collections of his short stories.

The Humor of Russia. (Selections.) E. L. Voynich.

D. S. Merezhkovsky: The Death of the Gods. This is the first part of a trilogy, and is an historical novel of the time of Julian the Apostate. The other parts (announced for publication) are: Resurrection (time of Leonardo da Vinci) and The Anti-Christ (time of Peter the Great.)

FOOTNOTES:

[33] The "Old Ritualists" or raskolniki, are those who do not accept the corrections to the Church books, and so forth, made in seventeenth century, by the Patriarch Nikon.

[34] Count L. N. Tolstoy presented me with a copy of one of these legends—a most distressing and improbable affair—with the remark, "Lyeskoff has spoiled himself by imitating me." He meant that Lyeskoff was imitating his little moral tales and legends, to which he had been devoting himself for some time past. I agreed with Tolstoy, as to the effect.

[35] Although she was very ill and weak, she was good enough to ask me to visit her, a few months before she died, in 1889.

[36] Count L. N. Tolstoy told me that Uspensky had never been sufficiently appreciated. He also praised Zlatovratsky highly.

[37] Former crown serfs repeatedly told me how free they had been—how much better off than those of private persons.

[38] Naturally, it is this feature of his writings which made Count Tolstoy laud him so highly to me.

[39] Or, "The Golovleffs," the above being the more formal translation. Saltykoff was too ill to receive strangers when I was in Russia. But I attended a requiem service over his body, at his home; another at the Kazan Cathedral, where all the literary lights assembled; and went to his funeral in the outlying cemetery, thereby having the good fortune to behold one of the famous "demonstrations" in which the Russian public indulges on such occasions.

[40] This refers to the Table of Ranks, established by Peter the Great. The fourth class of officials from the top of the ladder, have attained a very respectable amount of embroidery, dignity, and social position.

[41] About two cents and a half.

[42] I have seen the number variously stated at from eleven to thirteen; but Countess Sophia Andreevna, his wife, told me there had been fifteen, and I regard her as the final authority on this point, a very interesting one, in view of some of his latter-day theories and exhortations. Countess Tolstoy was the daughter of Dr. Behrs, of Moscow.

[43] Turgeneff, who afterwards called Tolstoy "The Great Writer of the Russian Land," pronounced emphatically against him at this time; and so did many others, who became his enthusiastic admirers.

[44] At this period, also, the peasant costume became the fashion in the higher circles. Count Tolstoy is generally (out of Russia) assumed to be the first and only wearer of such garments.

[45] This is a particularly interesting example to the people of America and to me. I sent to Count Tolstoy over seven thousand dollars which people throughout the length and breadth of the land had forwarded to me for that purpose, and I turned thousands more in his direction. His conscience is as uneasy and as fitful and illogical in pretty nearly all other matters, which is a pity, because it is both lively and sincere, though mistaken.

[46] It was to this sort of story that Count Tolstoy referred, when he told me that Lyeskoff had spoiled his talent of recent years by imitating him, Tolstoy.

[47] I have stated my own theory as to Count Tolstoy's incessant changes of view, and his puzzling inconsistencies, in my "Russian Rambles." It is not necessary or fitting that I should repeat it here.

[48] I tried to see him in Nizhni Novgorod, but although he was still under police surveillance, the police could not tell me where to find him, and I obtained the information from a photographer friend of his. Unfortunately, he was then in the Crimea, gathering "material."

[49] Translated into English under the title "A Russian Priest." Another volume contains two charming stories from the same circle, "A Father of Six" and "An Occasional Holiday."

[50] He must have been at Kazan about the time I was there; and I have often wondered if I saw him on the wharf, where I passed weary hours waiting for the steamer.

[51] See "Orloff and His Wife," in my translation, 1891.

[52] I do not attempt a metrical translation. Lines 1-3, 2-4, 5-7, 6-8, rhyme in pairs.



INDEX

Adasheff, 54, 56.

Aksakoff, 141, 164.

Alexander I., 91, 101, 102, 105.

Archangel, 72.

Astrakhan, 70, 227, 269.

Baratynsky, 123.

Barynya Sudarynya, 34.

Batiushkoff, 106, 108.

Bogdanovitch, 96, 97.

Book of Degrees, 61.

Book of Hours, 53, 59.

Briuloff, 206.

Bunin, 107.

Byelinsky, 139, 141, 143, 161, 165, 204, 213, 215.

Caucasus, 251, 252, 270, 272.

Danilevsky, 230.

Dashkoff, 82.

Decembrists, 201, 215.

Delvig, 123.

Derzhavin, 82, 90, 96, 100, 114.

Dmitrieff, 92, 98, 105, 142.

Dmitry, St. of Rostoff, 63, 64.

Dmitry Donskoy (dmee-tree), 48.

Dniepr (Neepr), 2, 41, 147, 159.

Dolgoruky, 57.

Domostroy, 51.

Dostoevsky, 140, 161, 209, 212, 225, 254.

Drevlyans, 41.

Duroff, 214, 215.

Elizabeth, 68, 75, 76, 114, 230.

Feodor (fay-o-dor), 47, 59.

Feodorovna, 108, 110, 206.

Feodosiy, 40.

Frug, 274.

Galitzyn, 69.

Garshin, 265.

Glazatly, 56.

Gogol, 140, 141, 146-159, 161, 165, 167, 181, 189, 213, 215.

Gontcharoff, 140, 161-63, 220, 223, 250.

Gorky, 268-272.

Gregory, 63.

Griboyedoff, 124, 128, 181.

Grigorovitch, 140, 161, 163-64, 213.

House Regulator, 51.

Igor (egor), 41.

Igor's Raid, 44.

Ilarion, 39.

Ioannovna, Anna, 69, 72, 75, 114.

Irkutsk, 199.

Ivan (e-vahn) the Terrible, 51.

Kamarynskaya, 34.

Kantemir, 68, 69, 84.

Kapnist, 96.

Karamzin (ka-ram-zeen), 92, 98, 102, 106, 109, 111, 115, 124, 229.

Katherine II., 70, 77, 80, 82, 84, 85, 90, 91, 96, 100, 102, 114.

Kazan, 33, 52, 56, 97, 141, 251, 269.

Khemnitzer, 96-100.

Kheraskoff, 96, 97, 164.

Kherson, 158, 274.

Khomyakoff, 164.

Khvoshtchinsky, 234.

Kieff (keef), 1, 2, 7, 29, 36, 39, 41, 47, 56, 61, 63, 67, 204, 207.

Koltzoff, 142-145, 194, 204.

Korolenko, 266.

Kostomaroff, 230.

Kotoshikin, 57.

Kozma, Epistle to, 54.

Krizhanitz, 58.

Kronstadt, 273.

Kryloff (kree-lof), 98, 109, 112, 124, 189.

Kurbsky, 53, 55.

Kurotchkin, 210.

Kyrill, 3.

Kyrill of Novgorod, 40.

Lermontoff, 116, 128, 138, 140, 150, 192.

Lomonosoff, 57, 69, 72-5, 97, 113, 128, 139, 140.

Lyeskoff, 231.

Maikoff, 140, 193.

Makary, 48.

Markovitch, 233.

Marlinsky, 146.

Matchtet, 266.

Maxim, the Greek, 50.

Melnikoff, 230.

Merezhkovsky, 274.

Methody, 3.

Mikhailovitch, 57, 59, 61, 62.

Minaeff, 210.

Minsky, 274.

Moghila (mo-ghe-la), 56, 61, 63.

Moscow, 47, 48, 53, 55, 57, 61, 62, 63, 67, 69, 72, 76, 84, 102, 139, 143, 164, 167, 182, 186, 193, 210, 212, 215, 251.

Most Holy Governing Synod, 59, 68.

Mystery Plays, 63.

Nadson, 272-73.

Nekrasoff, 140, 161, 195-204, 209, 202.

Nertchinsk, 200, 201.

Nestor, 8, 40, 41.

Nicholas I., 108, 206.

Nikifor, 40.

Nikitin, 209.

Nikon, 58, 61.

Nizhni Novgorod, 269.

Novgorod, 2, 6, 7, 29, 62, 67.

Oktoikh, 52.

Olga, 41.

Olonetz, 31, 36, 91.

Orel (aryol), 164.

Orenburg, 207, 209.

Osten-Saken, 251.

Ostromir, 6.

Ostrovsky, 12, 161, 182-191.

Ostrozhsky, 53.

Ozeroff, 105.

Panaeff, 140, 196.

Patriarch, 58, 59, 62.

Paul I., 91, 101.

Peter the Great, 57, 58, 59, 66, 67, 70, 75, 113.

Petrashevsky, 209, 214, 215, 239.

Pisemsky, 191.

Pleshtcheeff, 209, 210, 215.

Polonsky, 194.

Polotzky, 57, 59, 61, 63.

Poltava, 147.

Pososhkoff, 67.

Potapenko, 267.

Preobrazhensky, 91.

Prokopovitch, 68, 69, 75, 85.

Pushkin, 44, 92, 106, 109, 113-124, 126, 128, 139, 142, 143, 146, 165, 188, 189, 214, 229, 238.

Razin Stenka, 33.

Rostislaff, 3.

Rurik, 2, 61.

Russian News, 66.

Rybnikoff, 31.

Ryeshetnikoff, 237.

Sadko, 31.

St. Petersburg, 67, 73, 76, 80, 84, 126, 129, 140, 143, 164, 167, 186, 195, 205, 207, 210, 212, 255.

Saltykoff, 238.

Schelling, 138-39.

Shenshin, 193.

Shevtchenko, 204-9, 233.

Simbirsk, 161.

Slavyanophils, 139.

Smotritzky, 57.

Solovieff, 230, 263.

Sorotchinsky, 147.

Soshenko, 205.

Spyeshneff, 215.

Stepennaya Kniga, 61.

Stoglava, 50.

Sumarokoff, 75-8, 97, 181.

Sylvester, 51, 54.

Tamboff, 91.

Tarakanoff, Princess, 230.

Tashkentzians, 241.

Tatar, 10, 33, 36, 47, 48.

Tatishtcheff, 68, 70.

Tauris, 158.

Tchasosloff, 53.

Tchekoff, 266.

Tchernigoff, 67.

Tchernyshevsky, 226.

Tchetya Minaya, 49.

Theatres, 63.

Tiflis, 126.

Tiutcheff, 194.

Tobolsk, 215.

Tolstoy, A. K., 191-3.

Tolstoy, L. N., 140, 141, 150, 161, 188, 218, 233, 250-65.

Trediakovsky, 68, 71.

Tzarskoe Selo, 92, 114, 238.

Turgeneff, 140, 161, 164-80, 190, 220, 223, 250, 254.

Tver, 217.

Ufa, 141.

Ukraina, 156, 208, 270.

Uspensky, 234, 236.

Vasilievitch, 51.

Vasily, 47, 51.

Vilna, 205.

Vladimir, 1, 7, 29, 30, 39, 97.

Vladimir, Monomachus, 43.

Voevoda, 56, 57.

Volhynia, 53.

Volkhoff, 76.

Von Vizin, 82, 90, 150, 181.

Voronezh, 142, 143.

Vyatka, 239.

Yaroslaff, 39.

Yaroslavl, 76.

Yavorsky, 68.

Yazykoff, 123, 124.

Yasnaya Polyana, 250-52.

Zagoskin, 146, 229.

Zaporozhian, 147.

Zhemtchuzhnikoff, 210.

Zhidyata, Luka, 39.

Zhukovsky, 106, 108, 115, 124, 143, 150, 192, 206, 208.

Zizanie-Tustanovsky, 57.

Zlatovratsky, 234, 236.



* * * * *



Transcriber's List of Corrections:

Page 45, "Polovtzi" changed to "Polovtzy." (... while the Polovtzy are called "accursed," in contrast with the orthodox Russians.)

Page 53, "Ostrozhky" changed to "Ostrozhsky." (... the famous Ostrozhsky Bible ...)

Page 65, "Gore-Zlostchastye" changed to "Gore-Zloshtchastye." (... "The Tale of Gore-Zloshtchastye; How Gore-Zloshtchastye Brought the Young Man to the Monastic State," ...)

Page 77, "Horeff" changed to "Khoreff." (... in addition to "Khoreff" and "Hamlet," "Dmitry the Pretender," and "Mstislaff.")

Page 95, "fiy" changed to "fly." (Naught! But I live, and on hope's pinions fly)

Page 107, "seige" changed to "siege." (The peasants took him at his word, and brought two young Turkish girls, who had been captured at the siege of Bender.)

Page 137, "Lifeguardsmen" changed to "Lifeguardsman." (Then the redoubtable Lifeguardsman Kiribyeevitch steps forth.)

Page 140, "constitute" changed to "constitutes." (His volume of articles on Pushkin constitutes a complete critical history of Russian literature ...)

Page 164, "Sergyevitch" changed to "Sergyeevitch." (Among the writers who followed Grigorovitch in his studies of peasant life, was Ivan Sergyeevitch Turgeneff ...)

Page 177, "benind" changed to "behind." (... he held the thief beneath him, and was engaged in tying the man's hands behind his back with his girdle.)

Page 221, "psycopathologist" changed to "psychopathologist." (This doctor demonstrates that Dostoevsky was a great psychopathologist ...)

Page 230, "Serebryani" changed to "Serebryany." (... "War and Peace" and "Prince Serebryany," stand quite apart, and far above all others.)

Page 233, "Alexandrevna" changed to "Alexandrovna." (Among these was a well-known woman writer, Marya Alexandrovna Markovitch ...)

Page 234, "Nilkolai" changed to "Nikolai." (... two men headed the movement, Glyeb Ivanovitch Uspensky and Nikolai Nikolaevitch Zlatovratsky.)

Page 246, "Viatka" changed to "Vyatka." (A correspondent writes to us from Vyatka ...)

Page 274, "1866" changed to "1916." (... Semen Grigorievitch Frug (1860-1916) ...)

Page 274, "Sergieevitch" changed to "Sergyeevitch." (... Dmitry Sergyeevitch Merezhkovsky ...)

Page 278, "Pleshtcheef" changed to "Pleshtcheeff."

THE END