Page:Memoirs of a revolutionist volume 1.djvu/133

Rh He himself was a poet, and had a wonderful facility for writing most musical verses; indeed, I think it a great pity that he abandoned poetry. But the reaction against art, which arose among the Russian youth in the early sixties, and which Turguéneff has depicted in 'Bazároff' (Fathers and Sons), induced him to look upon his verses with contempt, and to plunge headlong into the natural sciences. I must say, however, that my favourite poet was none of those whom his poetical gift, his musical ear, and his philosophical turn of mind made him like best. His favourite Russian poet was Venevítinoff, while mine was Nekrásoff, whose verses were very often unmusical, but appealed most to my heart by their sympathy for 'the downtrodden and ill-treated.'

'One must have a set purpose in his life,' he wrote me once. 'Without an aim, without a purpose, life is not life.' And he advised me to get a purpose in my life worth living for. I was too young then to find one; but something' undetermined, vague, 'good' altogether, already rose under that appeal, even though I could not say what that ' good ' would be.

Our father gave us very little spending money, and I never had any to buy a single book; but if Alexander got a few roubles from some aunt, he never spent a penny of it for pleasure, but bought a book and sent it to me. He objected, though, to indiscriminate reading. 'One must have some question,' he wrote, 'addressed to the book one is going to read.' However, I did not then appreciate this remark, and cannot think now without amazement of the number of books, often of a quite special character, which I read, in all branches, but