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Biography Cronstadt, indisputably the most popular personage in the Empire of the Tsar. In the winter he generally resides at Moscow, frequenting, by preference, charitable institutions and working men’s concerts, despite his advanced age taking the liveliest interest in every question of the day, especially those relating to religion and morality, and delighting everyone by the alertness of his intelligence and the generous breadth of his sympathy. In 1899 the veteran astonished and delighted the world of literature with his “Voskresenie” (“Resurrection”), a noble work (despite its occasional extravagances) from every point of view, worthy of his best days, demonstrating that the hand of the master had lost none of its cunning, and piercing with the divination of genius to the deepest depths of human impulse and motive.

April, 1902.