three men in the whole history of Russian literature who had perfect control of their instrument, namely, Pushkin, Turgenev, and Chekhov. Of Turgenev it is certainly true to say that he is the one supreme master of prose whom Russian literature has produced. His intense appreciation of and his intimate familiarity with the French language only made him more keenly conscious of the superior beauty and of the wider possibilities of his native tongue. He admired it and loved it, as only a great artist could love the vehicle of his art. During the reign of Nicholas I, in the darkest hour of Russian reaction, when bureaucratic corruption, military despotism, and ecclesiastic obscurantism were supreme, one thought alone kept awake the faith of Turgenev in the future of the race. He only retained his belief for the apparently irrelevant reason that a race which had proved capable of creating such a wonderful language as Russian must indeed be called to a glorious destiny.
V
Still with all our admiration for the Russian tongue, the question forces itself upon us: Is not the very existence of this wonderful lan-
