Page:Phelps - Essays on Russian Novelists.djvu/87

 Ibsen found that he could best describe social conditions in Norway from the distance of Munich or Rome, just as the best time to describe a snowstorm is on a hot summer's day,--for poets, as Mrs. Browning said, are always most present with the distant,--so Turgenev's pictures of Russian character and life are nearer to the truth than if he had penned them in the hurly-burly of political excitement. Besides, it was through Turgenev that the French, and later the whole Western world, became acquainted with Russian literature; for a long time he was the only Russian novelist well known outside of his country. It was also owing largely to his personal efforts that Tolstoi's work first became known in France. He distributed copies to the leading writers and men of influence, and asked them to arouse the public. Turgenev had a veritable genius for admiration; he had recognised the greatness of his younger rival immediately, and without a twinge of jealousy. When he read "Sevastopol," he shouted "Hurrah!" and drank the author's health. Their subsequent friendship was broken by a bitter and melancholy quarrel which lasted sixteen years. Then after Tolstoi had embraced Christianity, he considered it his duty to write to Turgenev, and suggest a renewal of their acquaintance. This was in 1878. Turgenev replied immediately, saying that all hostile feelings