New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-03-27
TOURGUENEFF.
THE RUSSIAN NOVELIST IN HID LEI ihho

yOIIRGUENEFF AND HIS F1iENCl ClItti,E;
Edited by Il. IIalpcrino kanln"xy' 2fp iJenrv
by Ethel Arnold. Octave PIP N'' "'-' i''"'
Holt Co.
From one point OF view this volume Is quite
valuelosg inasmuch as the bulk OF the letters "
contains are the merest notes OF expiaha''oh' eH-
cuses for failures to keep appointments or ory
rcports OF business matters. TourgueneH sur
fcred for years from the govt. and IN TINS VOL
umc he seems to talk about little else Dut us re-
Iation to his movements In society But there ~
another point Of view from which nearly every
page Of the book Is interesting. The accent ~
everything in the utterances OF some men,
With Tourgueneff even three lines OF common
place had a certain indefnable quality when
speaks OF original character, OF unusual tenn
permanent.
BROADLY speaking the impression to be derived
from this correspondence is OF huge child.
giant with the heart OF an innocent ooy' IL ~
an odd thing that a man whose CHOSEN irchuS
were writer's like Flaubert. Zola and Maupas-
SAINT should have kept himself, in MS WORK ana
temperament alike. unspotted from thcir World
He lived with them. and, according 10 'he'r
va~ious degrees OF attractiveness loved them'
he advocated their fortunes In Russia ana
PLAYED the part In short, or man VINO was
quite willing to identify himself with the Famous
group to which France has looked for the estaD-
lishment Of her "naturalistic" school But ne
never became a "naturalstic' author himself.
To begin with. he had too strong and too healthy
an intellect. Furthermore he was too much OF
a gentleman. And lastly. ne was too much OF a
Russian The realism Of the Russians. that Is TO
say. Of men like Gogol, Dostoieffsky. Tolsto and
TourguGnen was always sturdy and construct
I've 1t never had any Of the an9mic. morbid
and dsintegrating characteristics OF the French
school. Beneath the Slavic crudity, which it is
not unnatural for foreigners to regard with APP
prehension. as though untold barbarism urkcd
beneath it. there is really profound conserv-
atsm. or to be more exact, q strange fatastic
and yet not uncheerful mmobility. This comes
out in a letter written from Spassokie. Tour
gutneff's provincial estate in Russia He says
to Flaubert: Standing upright in a corner of
the room there is an old Byzantine 'eikon.' quite
black and framed in silver-only an immense
sombre rigid face: It bores me little. but l
can't have it taken away because my servant
would think me heather and that's no joke
here" The two sides Of his nature revealed
In this passage. Writing with his thoughts on
Paris and his friends there. with his emotions
strung 10 the harmonies OF an alien civilization.
he finds the relic Of ancestral beliefs and habits
disturbing 10 his mood. yet his playful allusion
to the shock which any rreverence his part
might give to his servant really cOnceals the
essentially Russian temperament Of the man and
his permanent allegiance to the traditions OF his
fOrefathers. Thus you run to earth the cxplana-
ton OF his detachment from the authors with
whom he was most intimate in France: thus you
See how much Of the child there was in his dis
position. the instinct OF the intellectual cpl
curean subordinatng itself to the steadfast
moral nature which he had drawn in with his
mothers milk Thus, too. you perceive how ir
revocably Russian he was, the incarnation of
his race in spite Of all the charges of cosmopo-