Page:Phelps - Essays on Russian Novelists.djvu/86

 lar work. His definition of happiness is not only a self-revelation, it will appeal to many humble individuals who are not writers at all. Being asked for a definition of happiness, he gave it in two words--"Remorseless Laziness."

It is one of the curious contradictions in human nature that Tolstoi, so aggressive an apostle of Christianity, was himself so lacking in the cardinal Christian virtues of meekness, humility, gentleness, and admiration for others; and that Turgenev, who was without religious belief of any kind, should have been so beautiful an example of the real kindly tolerance and unselfish modesty that should accompany a Christian faith. There is no better illustration in modern history of the grand old name of gentleman.

His pessimism was the true Slavonic pessimism, quiet, profound, and undemonstrative. I heard the late Professor Boyesen say that he had never personally known any man who suffered like Turgenev from mere Despair. His pessimism was temperamental, and he very early lost everything that resembled a definite religious belief. Seated in a garden, he was the solitary witness of a strife between a snake and a toad; this made him first doubt God's Providence.

He was far more helpful to Russia, living in Paris, than he could have been at home. Just as