trary, what I saw around me was revolting — in fact, disgusting — to me. I could not hesitate long. I must either make up my mind to submit, and walk on quietly in the beaten track ; or tear my- self away, root and branch, even at the risk of losing many things dear to my heart. "This I decided to do. I became a cosmopolitan, which I have always remained. I could not live face to face with what I abhorred ; perhaps I had not suf- cient self-control or force of character for that. At any rate, it seemed as if I must, at all hazards, withdraw from my enemy, in order to be able to deal him surer blows from a distance. This mor- tal enemy was, in my eyes, the institution of serf- dom, which I had resolved to combat to the last extremity, and with which I had sworn never to make peace. It was in order to fulfil this vow that I left my country. . .
The writer will now become a European ; he will uphold the method of Peter the Great, against those patriots who have entrenched them- selves behind the great Chinese wall. Reason, good laws, and good literature have no fixed country. Every one must seize his treasure wher- ever he can find it, in the common soil of human- ity, and develop it in his own way. In reading the strong words of his own confession we are led to a feeling of anxiety for the poet's future. Will politics turn him from his true course? Fortu- nately they did not. Turgenef had too literary
