Page:Russian Novelists (1887).djvu/59

Rh first sketches and tales of Gogol revealed to Bielinski the birth of this new art. He declared the age of lyric poetry was past forever, and that the reign of Russian prose romance had begun. Everything has justified this great writer's prophecy. Since the time of Pushkin, their literature has undergone wonderful developments. The novelists no longer draw from outside sources, but from the natal soil, and it is they who will show us what a rich verdure can be produced from under those Arctic snows.