the Russian to express the beginning or the continuation or the repetition of action. A few suffixes will enable the Russian to give free expression to every contradictory feeling. Whereas the English language—probably alone among European tongues—has sacrificed such means of expression as diminutives and augmentatives, the Russian language has treasured and multiplied this invaluable means of emotional expression, and is able to express merely by a slight modification in the ending of a word, every degree of affection and hatred, of familiarity or contempt.
To the uneducated there may be little difference between "ancient mariner" and "old sailor"; but for literary purposes there is a gulf between the Anglo-Saxon and the French-Norman words. Even so, to the uninitiated, the niceties of Russian grammar may be only a game of pedants, but to the artist that game of pedants gives full scope to all the resources of the literary craft; and, therefore, only the literary craftsman can appreciate all the possibilities of that wonderful instrument, the Russian language, and only he can realize its tremendous difficulty. I remember Maxim Gorky telling me once that, in his opinion, there were only
