A RUSSIAN WRITER.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1908, 17 November 1913, Page 9

A RUSSIAN WRITER.

- "A gratifying Bi.gn of • tho times is. tho fact that- the merits of Theodor Dostoievsky, the greatest of all Russian realistie writers, are- becoming increasingly realised by tho reading public who no longer look upon the worlcs of Tolstoi, Turgeniev, and 'I'chekhov as the be-all arid, end-all of Russian fiction, ! ' f sn.ys 0. J. Hogarth in a very luminous introduction to liis translation of the great .Russian novelist, Dostoievsky's "Letters from tho Underworld."

"Dostoievsky," lib says, "may bo said to constituto particularly healthy reading for the 'comfortable' section of society, for lio lays bare same 0 i the worst of our social sores, and invites all men and women to contemplate the putrescent foulness which civilisation permits. ■ "IMilse what m. niany ' xedfetio writers portray, his description of the terrible tilings of tlih world are descriptions at first hand, for ho himself had descended into, had dwelt in, the iHfernOj/iiqt merely as a spectatoiybiit as a captive in, an inmate of., outcast who had been forced to rjb shoulders with the lost souls who herd tliere, and to endure their bodily pains and mental sufferings. Drawing Us pictures ol' what ho has seen «ud hoard in these murky depths, lie, by implication; inks of the comfortable section of Society what it thinks of it ali. Yet lie does not seek to extenuate, any more than- ho seeks to condemn, the vices and foulnesses, moral and physical, of the llndenvorld. Ho does not lay tho blame for what lie has witnessed at tho daor of any particular social system, an.V particular social class. He merely iiivitcs tho to look, and then 'to so away and think over ivlia.t ho has beheld. Dostoievsky is 110 preacher like Tolstoi; he does not even indulge in gentle satire, after the manner of Tehokov; yet iilso lie is. 110 pessimist. Even m tile most degraded of huniaii beings, lie can discern, if not a ray of light, at all events the possibility of a lay eventually penetrating tho darkness., ami coming to redeem and make glorious the wl.'de.

"Jiui how is their Vfidemp'tioi) to bo brought about? By love in tho higher sense of ilm term? Yes, love, love,'and neai.il love, ,is Dostoievsky's one 'remedy for tho ills of life, bin o.no iftedioiiio lor tlw sicknesses of Inirtiniiity. Yob lio never actually puffs his panacea. Ho only shows us what it can do, and then loaves the roader to draw his own. inf'oi'enco from the demonstration.." "Jjove," says Dostoievsky, "is what tttMi will civo tlieir veix souls, tfcuir live? m,"