Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/239

 those things that narrow and confine the mind of man. Another writer who must be mentioned here is Gogol, who served primarily to introduce the social element into Russian literature. He was a realist, and his realism is characterized by a truly Russian quality: it is forever subservient to an idealistic aim. With Gogol, humor is not intended as an end in itself; his attempt is to arouse corrective laughter, social laughter in its higher sense.

Dostoyevsky is taken up with religious questions. He gives us a picture of the sufferings of nonbelief, the desire for faith, and the impossibility of believing. He is very catholic in his teachings. He preached humility for the proud, labor for the indolent, the Slavophile idea of Russian Messiahnism, God for the non-believers, and spiritual beauty for the peasant. But Dostoyevsky saw and portrayed the other side,—the new force of individuality that was stirring in the intellectual life of his country. It is in Dostoyevsky's ideas on individuality that Nietzsche found much of his inspiration. Human personality interested Dostoyevsky deeply, and it troubled him when it arose in protest, hurling down everything traditional and hereditary, denying the past, and sweeping away the faith based upon it. Dostoyevsky watched this uprising and assertion of the power of individuality, and he was drawn to it, and terrified by it at the same time. He was like Milton, who rejected Satan, and yet felt unaccountably attracted to the arch-rebel whose spirit meant Diabolonian revolt. To Dostoyevsky, the tremendous menace of individuality was apparent, and it seemed to him such an abyss of accumulated vengeance and insatiable wrath, that, like Savva in Andreyev's play, it seemed to be ready to wreck everything, to turn its hand against all creation. His mind pictured to itself all bonds rent asunder, all things holy cut down, such a thirst for blood and destruction, such disbelief, and such deep cynicism, that he was terrified, and in his great eagerness to stem the tide of vengeance, he wished to throw broadcast into life texts from the Scriptures and bits of Slavophile formulas, like a priest sprinkling holy water over a sinning multitude. In the dread consciousness of all this evil, Dostoyevsky called upon man to draw within himself, to develop spiritual power, and attain inner mastery.

Tolstoy carries still further Dostoyevsky's ideas, "Look within thy soul." His book, Confession, is the Everlasting Nay of Russian literature. In it he sounds the depths of despair, and