CHAPTER V.
THE RELIGION OF ENDURANCE. — DOSTOYEVSKI.
With Dostoyevski, that true Scythian, who will revolutionize all our previous habits of thought, we now enter into the heart of Moscow, with its giant cathedral of St. Basil, like a Chinese pagoda as to form and decoration, and built by Tartar architects; but dedicated to the worship of the Christian's God.
Turgenef and Dostoyevski, although contemporaries, belonging to the same school, and borne on by the same current of ideas, present in their respective works many sharply defined contrasts; still, they possess one quality in common, the outgrowth of the period in which they lived—sympathy for humanity. In Dostoyevski, this sympathy has developed into an intense pity for the humbler class, which regards him and believes in him as its master.
All contemporary forms of art have secret bonds in common. The same causes and sentiments which inclined these Russian authors to the study of real life attracted the great French landscape-painters of the same epoch to a closer
141