Page:Leonid Andreyev - Silence (Brown, 1910).djvu/8

 production Andreiyeff has been unusually prolific, having several volumes of short stories to his credit and a number of plays, the latter being a late development.

There are critics who are inclined to place Andreiyeff above Gorky. This is hardly fair to either man. Both are thorough moderns, both are rebels against the life that is, both have shown a decided leaning toward the Nietzschean view, the religion of individualism, have expounded through their art the place which the Ego occupies in our lives; both have attracted the young generation, have raised a storm of applause and protest from antagonistic factions, at the same time laying their impress upon their time by influencing armies of young writers. The rich, red blood, the crude blind force—are Gorky's; the refinement, the conscious artistry—are Andreiyeff's. Though linked in their literary sympathies, each man stands on his own footing.

Andreiyeff's earlier stories, one of which is presented here, are characterized particularly by their purely artistic quality, rather than by the iconoclastic spirit which marks his later work. "Silence" has no moral to teach, no idea to inculcate. It is simply a story—or