It is the enduring residue which
remains when all evanescent impressions have lapsed into the background.
It expresses, too, the typical mental attitude of every Russian, be he
ever so Frenchified and denationalized. The word "Virgin Soil" was a
favorite phrase with Tourgueneff when speaking of his country, and he
used it as the title of his last novel. It seemed to him to explain
everything in Russian conditions that to the rest of the world appeared
enigmatical. The whole of Dr. Brandes's book is interpenetrated with
this consciousness of the vast possibilities hidden in the virgin bosom
of the new earth, even though they may be too deeply hidden to sprout up
into the daylight for centuries to come. The Russian literature, which
is at present enchaining the attention of the civilized world, is a
brilliant variation of this theme, an imaginative commentary on this
text. The second half of Dr. Brandes's "Impressions" is devoted to the
consideration of Puschkin, Gogol, Lermontoff, Dostojevski, Tourgueneff,
and Tolstoi; of each of whom he gives, as it appears to me, a better
account than M.
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