4772 (#566) ###########################################
4772
JOHN DONNE
for other use than an ornament and self-satisfaction.
4772
JOHN DONNE
for other use than an ornament and self-satisfaction.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v08 - Dah to Dra
Hans shoots past him.
Hilda's
eyes fill with tears: Peter must beat. Annie's eyes flash proudly.
Gretel gazes with clasped hands: four strokes more will take her
brother to the columns.
He is there! Yes; but so was young Schummel just a second
before. At the last instant, Carl, gathering his powers, had
whizzed between them, and passed the goal.
"CARL SCHUMMEL, ONE MILE! >> shouts the crier.
## p. 4766 (#560) ###########################################
4766
MARY MAPES DODGE
Soon Madame Van Gleck rises again. The falling handkerchief
starts the bugle, and the bugle, using its voice as a bowstring,
shoots off twenty girls like so many arrows.
It is a beautiful sight; but one has not long to look: before
we can fairly distinguish them they are far in the distance.
This time they are close upon one another.
It is hard to say,
as they come speeding back from the flagstaff, which will reach.
the columns first. There are new faces among the foremost,-
eager glowing faces, unnoticed before. Katrinka is there, and
Hilda; but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear. Gretel is waver-
ing, but when Rychie passes her she starts forward afresh. Now
they are nearly beside Katrinka. Hilda is still in advance: she
is almost "home. ” She has not faltered since that bugle note
sent her flying: like an arrow, still she is speeding toward the
goal. Cheer after cheer rises in the air. Peter is silent, but
his eyes shine like stars. "Huzza! Huzza! "
The crier's voice is heard again.
"HILDA VAN GLECK, ONE MILE! "
A loud murmur of approval runs through the crowd, catching
the music in its course, till all seems one sound, with a glad
rhythmic throbbing in its depths. When the flag waves all is
still.
Once more the bugle blows a terrific blast. It sends off the
boys like chaff before the wind,-dark chaff, I admit, and in big
pieces.
It is whisked around at the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the
cheers and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is com-
ing. There are three boys in advance this time, and all abreast,
Hans, Peter, and Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rush-
ing through with a whiff. Fly, Hans; fly, Peter; don't let Carl
beat again! -Carl the bitter, Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is
flagging, but you are as strong as ever. Hans and Peter, Peter
and Hans; which is foremost? We love them both. We scarcely
care which is the fleeter.
Hilda, Annie, and Gretel, seated upon the long crimson bench,
can remain quiet no longer. They spring to their feet, so dif-
ferent! and yet one in eagerness. Hilda instantly reseats her-
self: none shall know how interested she is; none shall know
how anxious, how filled with one hope. Shut your eyes then,
Hilda, hide your face rippling with joy. Peter has beaten.
## p. 4767 (#561) ###########################################
MARY MAPES DODGE
4767
"PETER VAN HOLP, ONE MILE! " calls the crier.
The same buzz of excitement as before, while the judges take
notes, the same throbbing of music through the din; but some-
thing is different. A little crowd presses close about some
object near the column. Carl has fallen. He is not hurt, though
somewhat stunned. If he were less sullen, he would find more
sympathy in these warm young hearts. As it is, they forget him.
as soon as he is fairly on his feet again.
The girls are to skate their third mile.
How resolute the little maidens look, as they stand in a line!
Some are solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a
smile, half bashful, half provoked; but one air of determination
pervades them all.
This third mile may decide the race. Still, if neither Gretel
nor Hilda win, there is yet a chance among the rest for the
silver skates.
Each girl feels sure that this time she will accomplish the
distance in one-half the time. How they stamp to try their
runners! How nervously they examine each strap! How erect
they stand at last, every eye upon Madame Van Gleck!
The bugle thrills through them again. With quivering eager-
ness they spring forward, bending, but in perfect balance. Each
flashing stroke seems longer than the last.
Now they are skimming off in the distance.
Again the eager straining of eyes; again the shouts and
cheering; again the thrill of excitement, as after a few moments,
four or five in advance of the rest come speeding back, nearer,
nearer to the white columns.
Who is first? Not Rychie, Katrinka, Annie, nor Hilda, nor
the girl in yellow, but Gretel,- Gretel, the fleetest sprite of a
girl that ever skated. She was but playing in the earlier race:
now she is in earnest, or rather, something within her has deter-
mined to win. That blithe little form makes no effort; but it
cannot stop,-not until the goal is passed!
In vain the crier lifts his voice: he cannot be heard. He has
no news to tell: it is already ringing through the crowd,- Gretel
has won the silver skates!
Like a bird she has flown over the ice; like a bird she looks
about her in a timid, startled way. She longs to dart to the
sheltered nook where her father and mother stand. But Hans is
beside her; the girls are crowding round. Hilda's kind, joyous
## p. 4768 (#562) ###########################################
4768
MARY MAPES DODGE
voice breathes in her ear.
Goose-girl or not, Gretel
Skaters.
From that hour none will despise her.
stands acknowledged Queen of the
With natural pride, Hans turns to see if Peter Van Holp is
witnessing his sister's triumph. Peter is not looking toward
them at all. He is kneeling, bending his troubled face low, and
working hastily at his skate-strap. Hans is beside him at once.
"Are you in trouble, mynheer? "
་་
"Ah, Hans! that you? Yes; my fun is over. I tried to
tighten my strap to make a new hole, and this botheration of a
knife has cut it nearly in two. "
"Mynheer," said Hans, at the same time pulling off a skate,
"you must use my strap! "
«<
"Not I, indeed, Hans Brinker! " cried Peter, looking up;
"though I thank you warmly. Go to your post, my friend: the
bugle will sound in a minute. "
"Mynheer," pleaded Hans in a husky voice, "you have called
me your riend. Take this strap-quick! There is not an
instant to lose. I shall not skate this time: indeed, I am out of
practice. Mynheer, you must take it;" and Hans, blind and
deaf to any remonstrance, slipped his strap into Peter's skate,
and implored him to put it on.
"Come, Peter! " cried Lambert from the line: "we are wait-
ing for you. "
"For Madame's sake," pleaded Hans, "be quick! She is
motioning to you to join the racers. There, the skate is almost
on: quick, mynheer, fasten it. I could not possibly win. The
race lies between Master Schummel and yourself. "
"You are a noble fellow, Hans! " cried Peter, yielding at
last. He sprang to his post just as the handkerchief fell to
the ground. The bugle sends forth its blast, loud, clear, and
ringing.
Off go the boys!
"Mein Gott! " cries a tough old fellow from Delft. "They
beat everything, these Amsterdam youngsters. See them! "
See them, indeed! They are winged Mercuries, every one of
them. What mad errand are they on? Ah, I know; they are
hunting Peter Van Holp. He is some fleet-footed runaway from
Olympus. Mercury and his troop of winged cousins are in full
chase. They will catch him! Now Carl is the runaway. The
pursuit grows furious. Ben is foremost!
## p. 4769 (#563) ###########################################
MARY MAPES DODGE
4769
The chase turns in a cloud of mist. It is coming this way.
Who is hunted now? Mercury himself. It is Peter, Peter Van
Holp! Fly, Peter!
Hans is watching you. He is sending all
his fleetness, all his strength, into your feet. Your mother and
sister are pale with eagerness. Hilda is trembling, and dare not
look up.
Fly, Peter! The crowd has not gone deranged; it is
only cheering. The pursuers are close upon you. Touch the
white column! It beckons; it is reeling before you- it —
>>
"Huzza! Huzza! Peter has won the silver skates!
"PETER VAN HOLP! " shouted the crier. But who heard him?
"Peter Van Holp! " shouted a hundred voices; for he was the
favorite boy of the place. "Huzza! Huzza! "
Now the music was resolved to be heard.
It struck up a
lively air, then a tremendous march. The spectators, thinking
something new was about to happen, deigned to listen and to
look.
The racers formed in single file. Peter, being tallest, stood
first. Gretel, the smallest of all, took her place at the end.
Hans, who had borrowed a strap from the cake-boy, was near
the head.
Three gayly twined arches were placed at intervals upon the
river, facing the Van Gleck pavilion.
Skating slowly, and in perfect time to the music, the boys
and girls moved forward, led on by Peter. It was beautiful to
see the bright procession glide along like a living creature. It
curved and doubled, and drew its graceful length in and out
among the arches; whichever way Peter, the head, went, the
body was sure to follow. Sometimes it steered direct for the
centre arch; then, as if seized with a new impulse, turned away
and curled itself about the first one; then unwound slowly, and
bending low, with quick snake-like curvings, crossed the river,
passing at length through the farthest arch.
When the music was slow, the procession seemed to crawl
like a thing afraid; it grew livelier, and the creature darted for-
ward with a spring, gliding rapidly among the arches, in and
out, curling, twisting, turning, never losing form, until at the
shrill call of the bugle rising above the music it suddenly
resolved itself into boys and girls, standing in double semicircle
before Madame Van Gleck's pavilion.
Peter and Gretel stand in the centre, in advance of the others.
Madame Van Gleck rises majestically. Gretel trembles, but feels
VIII-299
## p. 4770 (#564) ###########################################
MARY MAPES DODGE
4770
that she must look at the beautiful lady. She cannot hear what
is said, there is such a buzzing all around her. She is thinking
that she ought to try and make a courtesy, such as her mother
makes to the meester, when suddenly something so dazzling is
placed in her hand that she gives a cry of joy.
Then she ventures to look about her. Peter too has some-
thing in his hands. "Oh, oh! how splendid! " she cries; and
"Oh! how splendid! " is echoed as far as people can see.
་
Meantime the silver skates flash in the sunshine, throwing
dashes of light upon those two happy faces.
"Mevrouw Van Gend sends a little messenger with her
bouquets, one for Hilda, one for Carl, and others for Peter and
Gretel. "
―――――――
At sight of the flowers, the Queen of the Skaters becomes
uncontrollable. With a bright stare of gratitude, she gathers
skates and bouquet in her apron, hugs them to her bosom, and
darts off to search for her father and mother in the scattering
crowd.
## p. 4771 (#565) ###########################################
4771
JOHN DONNE
(1573-1631)
HE memory of Dr. Donne must not, cannot die, as long as
men speak English," wrote Izaak Walton, "whilst his con-
versation made him and others happy. His life ought to
be the example of more than that age in which he died. "
Born in 1573, all the influences of the age in which Donne lived
nourished his large nature and genius. Shakespeare and Marlowe
were nine years older than he; Chapman fourteen; Spenser, Lyly,
and Richard Hooker each twenty; while Sir Philip Sidney counted
one year less. Lodge and Puttenham were
grown men, and Greene and Nash riotous
boys. In the following year Ben Jonson
«< came forth to warm our ears," and soon
after we have his future co-worker Inigo
Jones. It was the time of a multitude of
poets,- Drayton, the Fletchers, Beaumont,
Wither, Herrick, Carew, Suckling, and
others. Imagination was foremost, and was
stimulated by vast discoveries. Debates
upon ecclesiastical reform, led by Wyclif,
Tyndal, Knox, Foxe, Sternhold, Hopkins,
and others, had prepared the way; and the
luminous literatures of Greece and Italy,
but recently brought into England, had
made men's spirits receptive and creative. It was a period of vast
conceptions, when men discovered themselves and the world afresh.
JOHN DONNE
Under such outward conditions Donne was born, in London, "of
good and virtuous parents," says Walton, being descended on his
mother's side from no less distinguished a personage than Sir Thomas
More. In 1584, when he was eleven years old, with a good command
both of French and Latin, he passed from the hands of tutors at
home to Hare Hall, a much frequented college at Oxford. Here he
formed a friendship with Henry Wotton, who, after the poet's death,
collected the material from which Walton wrote his tender and sin-
cere 'Life of Donne. '
After leaving Oxford he traveled for three years on the Continent,
and on his return in 1572 became a member of Lincoln's Inn, with
intent to study law; but his law never, says Walton, "served him
## p.
4772 (#566) ###########################################
4772
JOHN DONNE
for other use than an ornament and self-satisfaction. " While a mem-
ber of Lincoln's Inn he became one of the coterie of the poets of his
youth. To this time are to be referred those of his 'Divine Poems'
which show him a sincere Catholic. Stirred by the increasing differ-
ences between the Romanist and the Anglican denominations, Donne
turned toward theological questions, and finally cast his lot with the
new doctrines. His large nature, impetuously reacting from the
asceticism to which he had been bred, turned to excess and overbold-
ness in action, and an occasional coarseness of phrasing in his poems.
The first of his famous 'Satires' are dated 1593, and all were prob-
ably written before 1601. During this time also he squandered his
father's legacy of £3000. In 1596, when the Earl of Essex defeated the
Spanish navy and pillaged Cadiz, Donne, now one of the first poets
of the time, was among his followers. "Not long after his return
into England
the Lord Ellesmere, the Keeper of the Great
Seal,
taking notice of his learning, languages, and other
abilities, and much affecting his person and behavior, took him to be
his chief secretary, supposing and intending it to be an introduction to
some weighty employment in the State;
and did always use
him with much courtesy, appointing him a place at his own table. "
Here he met the niece of Lady Ellesmere, the daughter of Sir
George More, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower,-whom at Christmas,
1600, he married, despite the opposition of her father.
Sir George,
transported with wrath, obtained Donne's imprisonment; but the poet
finally regained his liberty and his wife, Sir George in the end forgiv-
ing the young couple. "Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part
spent in many chargeable travels, books, and dear-bought experience,
he [being] out of all employment that might yield a support for him-
self and wife. " The depth and intensity of Donne's feeling for this
beautiful and accomplished woman are manifested, says Mr. Norton,
in all the poems known to be addressed to her, such as The Anni-
versary' and 'The Token. '
Of The Valediction Forbidding Mourning' Walton declares:—“I
beg leave to tell that I have heard some critics, learned both in lan-
guages and poetry, say that none of the Greek or Latin poets did
ever equal them;" while from Lowell's unpublished Lecture on
Poetic Diction' Professor Norton quotes the opinion that "This poem
is a truly sacred one, and fuller of the soul of poetry than a whole
Alexandrian Library of common love verses. »
•
-
During this period of writing for court favors, Donne wrote many
of his sonnets and studied the civil and canon law. After the death
of his patron Sir Francis in 1606, Donne divided his time between
Mitcham, whither he had removed his family, and London, where he
frequented distinguished and fashionable drawing-rooms. At this
## p. 4773 (#567) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4773
time he wrote his admirable epistles in verse, The Litany,' and
funeral elegies on Lady Markham and Mistress Bulstrode; but those
poems are merely ❝occasional," as he was not a poet by profession.
At the request of King James he wrote the 'Pseudo-Martyr,' pub-
lished in 1610. In 1611 appeared his funeral elegy An Anatomy of
the World,' and one year later another of like texture, 'On the Prog-
ress of the Soul,' both poems being exalted and elaborate in thought
and fancy.
The King, desiring Donne to enter into the ministry, denied all
requests for secular preferment, and the unwilling poet deferred his
decision for almost three years. All that time he studied textual
divinity, Greek, and Hebrew. He was ordained about the beginning
of 1615. The King made him his chaplain in ordinary, and promised
other preferments. "Now," says Walton, "the English Church had
gained a second St. Austin, for think none was so like him before
his conversion, none so like St. Ambrose after it; and if his youth
had the infirmities of the one, his age had the excellences of the
other, the learning and holiness of both. "
In 1621 the King made him Dean of St. Paul's, and vicar of St.
Dunstan in the West. By these and other ecclesiastical emoluments
"he was enabled to become charitable to the poor and kind to his
friends, and to make such provision for his children that they were
not left scandalous, as relating to their or his profession or quality. "
His first printed sermons appeared in 1622. The epigrammatic
terseness and unexpected turns of imagination which characterize the
poems, are found also in his discourses. Three years later, during a
dangerous illness, he composed his 'Devotion. ' He died on the 31st
of March, 1631.
"Donne is full of salient verses," says Lowell in his 'Shakespeare
Once More,' "that would take the rudest March winds of criticism
with their beauty; of thoughts that first tease us like charades, and
then delight us with the felicity of their solution. " There are few in
which an occasional loftiness is sustained throughout, but this occa-
sional excellence is original, condensed, witty, showing a firm and
strong mind, clear to a degree almost un-English. His poetry has
somewhat of the stability of the Greeks, though it may lack their
sweetness and art. His grossness was the heritage of his time. He
is classed among the "metaphysical poets," of whom Dr. Johnson
wrote: "They were of very little care to clothe their notions with
elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which
are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to
adorn their thoughts. " It was in obedience to such a dictum, and to
Dryden's suggestion, doubtless, that Pope and Parnell recast and
re-versified the 'Satires. '
-
## p. 4773 (#568) ###########################################
4772
for other use the
ber of Lincoln's
youth. To th
which show }
ences betwe
turned tow
new doct
asceticis
ness in
Th
ably
fath
ST
с
ared two years after his
the seventeenth century.
his harsh and abrupt versi-
difficult to understand. The
Poems of John Donne,' edited by
The Poems of John Donne,' from
edited by Charles Eliot Norton (1895),
WANT
ཀཱ ཎ…ཨསྶསུཏནྟུ
*******
ཙིཏྟཎྞན་དཧཧི
***
3006
s in this volume are taken.
THE UNDERTAKING
HAVE done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
It were but madness now t' impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he which can have learned the art
To cut it, can find none.
So, if I now should utter this,
Others (because no more
Such stuff to work upon there is)
Would love but as before:
But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes;
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.
If, as I have, you also do
Virtue attired in women see,
And dare love that and say so too,
And forget the He and She;
And if this love, though placed so,
From profane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they do, deride;
Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
## p. 4773 (#569) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4775
A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
A$
S VIRTUOUS men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say "No";
So let us melt and make no noise,
No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;
"Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less eyes, lips, hands to miss.
Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if the other do,
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
¦
## p. 4774 (#570) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4774
The first edition of Donne's poems appeared two years after his
death. Several editions succeeded during the seventeenth century.
In the more artificial eighteenth century his harsh and abrupt versi-
fication and remote theorems made him difficult to understand. The
best editions are 'The Complete Poems of John Donne,' edited by
Dr. Alexander Grosart (1872); and 'The Poems of John Donne,' from
the text of the edition of 1633, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (1895),
from whose work the citations in this volume are taken.
THE UNDERTAKING
HAVE done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
It were but madness now t' impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he which can have learned the art
To cut it, can find none.
So, if I now should utter this,
Others (because no more
Such stuff to work upon there is)
Would love but as before:
But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes;
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.
If, as I have, you also do
Virtue attired in women see,
And dare love that and say so too,
And forget the He and She;
And if this love, though placed so,
From profane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they do, deride;
Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
## p. 4775 (#571) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4775
A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
A$
S VIRTUOUS men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say "No";
So let us melt and make no noise,
No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less eyes, lips, hands to miss.
Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansiòn,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if the other do,
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
## p. 4776 (#572) ###########################################
4776
JOHN DONNE
SONG
GⓇ
O AND catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Then, when thou return'st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
Nowhere
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not: I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true when you met her,
And last till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.
LOVE'S GROWTH
I
SCARCE believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude and season as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
But if this medicine love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence
But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,
And of the sun his working vigor borrow,
## p. 4777 (#573) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4777
Love's not so pure and abstract as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their muse,
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
And yet no greater, but more eminent,
Love by the spring is grown;
As in the firmament
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
Gentle love-deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
From love's awakened root do bud out now.
If, as in water stirred, more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Thou, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee;
And though each spring do add to love new heat,
As princes do in times of action get
New taxes and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate the spring's increase.
SONG
WEETEST Love, I do not go
For weariness of thee,
SWE
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter Love for me:
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best
To use myself in jest
Thus by feigned deaths to die.
Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here to-day;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way.
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.
Oh, how feeble is man's power,
That, if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
## p. 4778 (#574) ###########################################
4778
JOHN DONNE
But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to advance.
When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste;
Thou art the best of me.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfill:
But think that we
Are but turned aside to sleep:
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.
## p. 4779 (#575) ###########################################
4779
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
(1821-1881)
BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
N CERTAIN respects Dostoevsky is the most characteristically
national of Russian writers. Precisely for that reason, his
work does not appeal to so wide a circle outside of his
own country as does the work of Turgénieff and Count L. N. Tolstoy.
This result flows not only from the natural bent of his mind and
temperament, but also from the peculiar vicissitudes of his life as
compared with the comparatively even tenor of their existence, and
the circumstances of the time in which he lived. These circum-
stances, it is true, were felt by the writ-
ers mentioned; but practically they affected
him far more deeply than they did the
others, with their rather one-sided training;
and his fellow-countrymen-especially the
young of both sexes- were not slow to ex-
press their appreciation of the fact. His
special domain was the one which Turgén-
ieff and Tolstoy did not understand, and
have touched not at all, or only incident-
ally, the great middle class of society, or
what corresponds thereto in Russia.
FEODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Through his father, Mikhail Andréevitch
Dostoevsky, Feodor Mikhailovitch belonged
to the class of "nobles," - that is to say,
to the gentry; through his mother, to the respectable, well-to-do
merchant class, which is still distinct from the other, and was even
more so during the first half of the present century; and in personal
appearance he was a typical member of the peasant class. The
father was resident physician in the Marie Hospital for the Poor in
Moscow, having entered the civil service at the end of the war of
1812, during which he had served as a physician in the army. In
the very contracted apartment which he occupied in the hospital,
Feodor was born - one of a family of seven children, all of whom,
with the exception of the eldest and the youngest, were born there
-on October 30th (November 11th), 1821. The parents were very
upright, well-educated, devoutly religious people; and as Feodor ex-
pressed it many years later to his elder brother, after their father
## p. 4780 (#576) ###########################################
4780
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
died, "Do you know, our parents were very superior people, and they
would have been superior even in these days. " The children were
brought up at home as long as possible, and received their instruction
from tutors and their father. Even after the necessity of preparing
the two elder boys for a government institution forced the parents
to send them to a boarding-school during the week, they continued
their strict supervision over their associates, discouraged nearly all
friendships with their comrades, and never allowed them to go into
the street unaccompanied, after the national custom in good families,
even at the age of seventeen or more.
Feodor, according to the account of his brothers and relatives,
was always a quiet, studious lad, and he with his elder brother
Mikhail spent their weekly holidays chiefly in reading, Walter Scott
and James Fenimore Cooper being among their favorite authors;
though Russian writers, especially Pushkin, were not neglected. Dur-
ing many of these years the mother and children passed the sum-
mers on a little estate in the country which the father bought, and
it was there that Feodor Mikhailovitch first made acquaintance with
the beauties of nature, to which he eloquently refers in after life,
and especially with the peasants, their feelings and temper, which
greatly helped him in his psychological studies and in his ability to
endure certain trials which came upon him. There can be no doubt
that his whole training contributed not only to the literary tastes
which the famous author and his brother cherished throughout their
lives, but to the formation of that friendship between them which
was stronger than all others, and to the sincere belief in religion and
the profound piety which permeated the spirit and the books of
Feodor Mikhailovitch.
In 1837 the mother died, and the father took his two eldest sons
to St. Petersburg to enter them in the government School of Engi
neers. But the healthy Mikhail was pronounced consumptive by
the doctor, while the sickly Feodor was given a certificate of perfect
health. Consequently Mikhail was rejected, and went to the Engi-
neers' School in Revel, while Feodor, always quiet and reserved, was
left lonely in the St. Petersburg school. Here he remained for three
years, studying well, but devoting a great deal of time to his pas-
sionately beloved literary subjects, and developing a precocious and
penetrating critical judgment on such matters. It is even affirmed
that he began or wrote the first draft of his famous book 'Poor
People,' by night, during this period; though in another account he
places its composition later. After graduating well as ensign in 1841,
he studied for another year, and became an officer with the rank of
sub-lieutenant, and entered on active service, attached to the draught-
ing department of the Engineers' School, in August 1843.
## p. 4781 (#577) ###########################################
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOÉVSKY
4781
A little more than a year later he resigned from the service, in
order that he might devote himself wholly to literature. His father
had died in the mean time, and had he possessed any practical
talent he might have lived in comfort on the sums which his
guardian sent him. But throughout his life people seemed to fleece
him at will; he lost large sums at billiards with strangers, and other-
wise; he was generous and careless; in short, he was to the end
nearly always in debt, anxiety, and difficulties. Then came the first
important crisis in his life. He wrote (or re-wrote) 'Poor People';
and said of his state of mind, as he reckoned up the possible pecun-
iary results, that he could not sleep for nights together, and "If my
undertaking does not succeed, perhaps I shall hang myself. " The
history of that success is famous and stirring. His only acquaintance
in literary circles was his old comrade D. V. Grigorovitch (also well
known as a writer), and to him he committed the manuscript. His
friend took it to the poet and editor Nekrásoff, in the hope that it
might appear in the 'Collection' which the latter was intending to
publish. Dostoevsky was especially afraid of the noted critic Bye-
linsky's judgment on it: "He will laugh at my 'Poor People,' said
he; "but I wrote it with passion, almost with tears. "
He spent the evening with a friend, reading with him, as was the
fashion of the time, Gogol's 'Dead Souls,' and returned home at four
o'clock in the morning. It was one of the "white nights" of early
summer, and he sat down by his window. Suddenly the door-bell
rang, and in rushed Grigorovitch and Nekrásoff, who flung them-
selves upon his neck. They had begun to read his story in the
evening, remarking that "ten pages would suffice to show its qual-
ity. " But they had gone on reading, relieving each other as their
voices failed them with fatigue and emotion, until the whole was
finished. At the point where Pokrovsky's old father runs after his
coffin, Nekrásoff pounded the table with the manuscript, deeply
affected, and exclaimed, "Deuce take him! " Then they decide to
hasten to Dostoevsky: "No matter if he is asleep-we will wake
him up.
This is above sleep. "
This sort of glory and success was exactly of that pure, unmixed
sort which Dostoevsky had longed for. When Nekrásoff went to
Byelinsky with the manuscript of 'Poor People,' and announced, "A
new Gogol has made his appearance! " the critic retorted with sever-
ity, "Gogols spring up like mushrooms among us. " But when he
had read the story he said, "Bring him hither, bring him quickly;"
and welcomed Dostoevsky when he came, with extreme dignity and
reserve, but exclaimed in a moment, "Do you understand yourself
what sort of a thing this is that you have written ? » From that
moment the young author's fame was assured, and he became known
## p. 4782 (#578) ###########################################
4782
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOÉVSKY
and popular even in advance of publication in a wide circle of lit-
erary and other people, as was the fashion of those days in Russia.
When the story appeared, the public rapturously echoed the judg-
ment of the critics.
The close friendship which sprang up between Byelinsky and Dos-
toevsky was destined, however, to exert an extraordinary influence
upon Dostoevsky's career, quite apart from its critical aspect. Bye-
linsky was an atheist and a socialist, and Dostoevsky was brought
into relations with persons who shared those views, although he him-
self never wavered, apparently, in his religious faith, and was never
in harmony with any other aspirations of his associates except that
of freeing the serfs. Notwithstanding this, he became involved in the
catastrophe which overtook many visitors, occasional or constant, of
the "circles" at whose head stood Petrashevsky. The whole affair is
known as the Conspiracy of Petrashevsky. During the '40's the
students at the St. Petersburg University formed small gatherings
where sociological subjects were the objects of study, and read the
works of Stein, Haxthausen, Louis Blanc, Fourier, Proudhon, and
other similar writers. Gradually assemblies of this sort were formed
outside of the University. Petrashevsky, an employee of the Depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs, who had graduated from the Lyceum and
the University, and who was ambitious of winning power and a repu-
tation for eccentricity, learned of these little clubs and encouraged
their growth. He did not however encourage their close association
among themselves, but rather, entire dependence on himself, as the
centre of authority, the guide; and urged them to inaugurate a sort of
propaganda. Dostoevsky himself declared, about thirty years later,
that "the socialists sprang from the followers of Petrashevsky; they
sowed much seed. " He has dealt with them and their methods in
his novel Demons'; though perhaps not with exact accuracy. But
they helped him to an elucidation of the contemporary situation,
which Turgénieff had treated in Virgin Soil. ' The chief subject
of their political discussions was the emancipation of the serfs, and
many of Petrashevsky's followers reckoned upon a rising of the serfs
themselves, though it was proved that Dostoevsky maintained the
propriety and necessity of the reform proceeding from the govern-
ment. This was no new topic; the Emperor Nicholas I. had already
begun to plan the Emancipation, and it is probable that it would
have taken place long before it did, had it not been for this very
conspiracy. From the point of view of the government, the move-
ment was naturally dangerous, especially in view of what was taking
place in Europe at that epoch. Dostoevsky bore himself critically
toward the socialistic writings and doctrines, maintaining that in
their own Russian system of workingmen's guilds with reciprocal
## p. 4783 (#579) ###########################################
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
4783
bonds there existed surer and more normal foundations than in all
the dreams of Saint-Simon and all his school. He did not even visit
very frequently the circle to which he particularly belonged, and was
rarely at the house of Petrashevsky, whom many personally disliked.
(
But on one occasion, as he was a good reader, he was asked to
read aloud Byelinsky's famous letter to Gogol, which was regarded.
as a victorious manifest of "Western" (i. e. , of socialistic) views.
This, technically, was propagating revolution, and was the chief
charge against him when the catastrophe happened, and he, together
with over thirty other "Petrashevtzi," was arrested on April 23d
(May 5th), 1849. In the Peter-Paul Fortress prison, where he was
kept for eight months pending trial, Dostoevsky wrote The Little
Hero,' two or three unimportant works having appeared since 'Poor
People. ' At last he, with several others, was condemned to death
and led out for execution. The history of that day, and the analysis
of his sensations and emotions, are to be found in several of his
books: 'Crime and Punishment,' The Idiot,' 'The Karamazoff Broth-
ers. At the last moment it was announced to them that the Em-
peror had commuted their sentence to exile in varying degrees, and
they were taken to Siberia. Alexei Pleshtcheeff, then twenty-three
years of age, the man who sent Byelinsky's letter to Dostoevsky, was
banished for a short term of years to the disciplinary brigade in
Orenburg; and when I saw him in St. Petersburg forty years later,
I was able to form a faint idea of what Dostoevsky's popularity must
have been, by the way in which he, -a man of much less talent, origi-
nality, and personal power, - was surrounded, even in church, by
adoring throngs of young people. Dostoevsky's sentence was "four
years at forced labor in prison; after that, to serve as a common
soldier"; but he did not lose his nobility and his civil rights, being
the first noble to retain them under such circumstances.
The story of what he did and suffered during his imprisonment is
to be found in his Notes from the House of the Dead,' where,
under the disguise of a man sentenced to ten years' labor for the
murder of his wife, he gives us a startling, faithful, but in some
respects a consoling picture of life in a Siberian prison. His own
judgment as to his exile was, "The government only defended itself;"
and when people said to him, "How unjust your exile was! " he
replied, even with irritation, "No, it was just. The people them-
selves would have condemned us. " Moreover, he did not like to give
benefit readings in later years from his 'Notes from the House of the
Dead,' lest he might be thought to complain. Besides, this catas-
trophe was the making of him, by his own confession; he had be-
come a confirmed hypochondriac, with a host of imaginary afflictions
and ills, and had this affair not saved him from himself he said that
## p. 4784 (#580) ###########################################
4784
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
he "should have gone mad. " It seems certain, from the testimony
of his friend and physician, that he was already subject to the epi-
leptic fits which he himself was wont to attribute to his imprison-
ment; and which certainly increased in severity as the years went
on, until they occurred once a month or oftener, in consequence of
overwork and excessive nervous strain. In his novel The Idiot,'
whose hero is an epileptic, he has made a psychological study of his
sensations before and after such fits, and elsewhere he makes allu-
sions to them.
After serving in the ranks and being promoted officer when he
had finished his term of imprisonment, he returned to Russia in 1859,
and lived first at Tver; afterward, when permitted, in St. Petersburg.
The history of his first marriage — which took place in Siberia, to
the widow of a friend-is told with tolerable accuracy in his 'Humbled
and Insulted,' which also contains a description of his early strug-
gles and the composition of 'Poor People,' the hero who narrates
the tale of his love and sacrifice being himself. Like that hero, he
tried to facilitate his future wife's marriage to another man. He
was married to his second wife, by whom he had four children, in
1867, and to her he owed much happiness and material comfort. It
will be seen that much is to be learned concerning our author from
his own novels, though it would hardly be safe to write a biography
from them alone. Even in Crime and Punishment,' his greatest
work in a general way, he reproduces events of his own life, medita-
tions, wonderfully accurate descriptions of the third-rate quarter of
the town in which he lived after his return from Siberia, while en-
gaged on some of his numerous newspaper and magazine enterprises.
This journalistic turn of mind, combined in nearly equal measures
with the literary talent, produced several singular effects.
It ren-
dered his periodical Diary of a Writer' the most enormously popu-
lar publication of the day, and a success when previous ventures had
failed, though it consisted entirely of his own views on current topics
of interest, literary questions, and whatever came into his head. On
his novels it had a rather disintegrating effect.
eyes fill with tears: Peter must beat. Annie's eyes flash proudly.
Gretel gazes with clasped hands: four strokes more will take her
brother to the columns.
He is there! Yes; but so was young Schummel just a second
before. At the last instant, Carl, gathering his powers, had
whizzed between them, and passed the goal.
"CARL SCHUMMEL, ONE MILE! >> shouts the crier.
## p. 4766 (#560) ###########################################
4766
MARY MAPES DODGE
Soon Madame Van Gleck rises again. The falling handkerchief
starts the bugle, and the bugle, using its voice as a bowstring,
shoots off twenty girls like so many arrows.
It is a beautiful sight; but one has not long to look: before
we can fairly distinguish them they are far in the distance.
This time they are close upon one another.
It is hard to say,
as they come speeding back from the flagstaff, which will reach.
the columns first. There are new faces among the foremost,-
eager glowing faces, unnoticed before. Katrinka is there, and
Hilda; but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear. Gretel is waver-
ing, but when Rychie passes her she starts forward afresh. Now
they are nearly beside Katrinka. Hilda is still in advance: she
is almost "home. ” She has not faltered since that bugle note
sent her flying: like an arrow, still she is speeding toward the
goal. Cheer after cheer rises in the air. Peter is silent, but
his eyes shine like stars. "Huzza! Huzza! "
The crier's voice is heard again.
"HILDA VAN GLECK, ONE MILE! "
A loud murmur of approval runs through the crowd, catching
the music in its course, till all seems one sound, with a glad
rhythmic throbbing in its depths. When the flag waves all is
still.
Once more the bugle blows a terrific blast. It sends off the
boys like chaff before the wind,-dark chaff, I admit, and in big
pieces.
It is whisked around at the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the
cheers and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is com-
ing. There are three boys in advance this time, and all abreast,
Hans, Peter, and Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rush-
ing through with a whiff. Fly, Hans; fly, Peter; don't let Carl
beat again! -Carl the bitter, Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is
flagging, but you are as strong as ever. Hans and Peter, Peter
and Hans; which is foremost? We love them both. We scarcely
care which is the fleeter.
Hilda, Annie, and Gretel, seated upon the long crimson bench,
can remain quiet no longer. They spring to their feet, so dif-
ferent! and yet one in eagerness. Hilda instantly reseats her-
self: none shall know how interested she is; none shall know
how anxious, how filled with one hope. Shut your eyes then,
Hilda, hide your face rippling with joy. Peter has beaten.
## p. 4767 (#561) ###########################################
MARY MAPES DODGE
4767
"PETER VAN HOLP, ONE MILE! " calls the crier.
The same buzz of excitement as before, while the judges take
notes, the same throbbing of music through the din; but some-
thing is different. A little crowd presses close about some
object near the column. Carl has fallen. He is not hurt, though
somewhat stunned. If he were less sullen, he would find more
sympathy in these warm young hearts. As it is, they forget him.
as soon as he is fairly on his feet again.
The girls are to skate their third mile.
How resolute the little maidens look, as they stand in a line!
Some are solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a
smile, half bashful, half provoked; but one air of determination
pervades them all.
This third mile may decide the race. Still, if neither Gretel
nor Hilda win, there is yet a chance among the rest for the
silver skates.
Each girl feels sure that this time she will accomplish the
distance in one-half the time. How they stamp to try their
runners! How nervously they examine each strap! How erect
they stand at last, every eye upon Madame Van Gleck!
The bugle thrills through them again. With quivering eager-
ness they spring forward, bending, but in perfect balance. Each
flashing stroke seems longer than the last.
Now they are skimming off in the distance.
Again the eager straining of eyes; again the shouts and
cheering; again the thrill of excitement, as after a few moments,
four or five in advance of the rest come speeding back, nearer,
nearer to the white columns.
Who is first? Not Rychie, Katrinka, Annie, nor Hilda, nor
the girl in yellow, but Gretel,- Gretel, the fleetest sprite of a
girl that ever skated. She was but playing in the earlier race:
now she is in earnest, or rather, something within her has deter-
mined to win. That blithe little form makes no effort; but it
cannot stop,-not until the goal is passed!
In vain the crier lifts his voice: he cannot be heard. He has
no news to tell: it is already ringing through the crowd,- Gretel
has won the silver skates!
Like a bird she has flown over the ice; like a bird she looks
about her in a timid, startled way. She longs to dart to the
sheltered nook where her father and mother stand. But Hans is
beside her; the girls are crowding round. Hilda's kind, joyous
## p. 4768 (#562) ###########################################
4768
MARY MAPES DODGE
voice breathes in her ear.
Goose-girl or not, Gretel
Skaters.
From that hour none will despise her.
stands acknowledged Queen of the
With natural pride, Hans turns to see if Peter Van Holp is
witnessing his sister's triumph. Peter is not looking toward
them at all. He is kneeling, bending his troubled face low, and
working hastily at his skate-strap. Hans is beside him at once.
"Are you in trouble, mynheer? "
་་
"Ah, Hans! that you? Yes; my fun is over. I tried to
tighten my strap to make a new hole, and this botheration of a
knife has cut it nearly in two. "
"Mynheer," said Hans, at the same time pulling off a skate,
"you must use my strap! "
«<
"Not I, indeed, Hans Brinker! " cried Peter, looking up;
"though I thank you warmly. Go to your post, my friend: the
bugle will sound in a minute. "
"Mynheer," pleaded Hans in a husky voice, "you have called
me your riend. Take this strap-quick! There is not an
instant to lose. I shall not skate this time: indeed, I am out of
practice. Mynheer, you must take it;" and Hans, blind and
deaf to any remonstrance, slipped his strap into Peter's skate,
and implored him to put it on.
"Come, Peter! " cried Lambert from the line: "we are wait-
ing for you. "
"For Madame's sake," pleaded Hans, "be quick! She is
motioning to you to join the racers. There, the skate is almost
on: quick, mynheer, fasten it. I could not possibly win. The
race lies between Master Schummel and yourself. "
"You are a noble fellow, Hans! " cried Peter, yielding at
last. He sprang to his post just as the handkerchief fell to
the ground. The bugle sends forth its blast, loud, clear, and
ringing.
Off go the boys!
"Mein Gott! " cries a tough old fellow from Delft. "They
beat everything, these Amsterdam youngsters. See them! "
See them, indeed! They are winged Mercuries, every one of
them. What mad errand are they on? Ah, I know; they are
hunting Peter Van Holp. He is some fleet-footed runaway from
Olympus. Mercury and his troop of winged cousins are in full
chase. They will catch him! Now Carl is the runaway. The
pursuit grows furious. Ben is foremost!
## p. 4769 (#563) ###########################################
MARY MAPES DODGE
4769
The chase turns in a cloud of mist. It is coming this way.
Who is hunted now? Mercury himself. It is Peter, Peter Van
Holp! Fly, Peter!
Hans is watching you. He is sending all
his fleetness, all his strength, into your feet. Your mother and
sister are pale with eagerness. Hilda is trembling, and dare not
look up.
Fly, Peter! The crowd has not gone deranged; it is
only cheering. The pursuers are close upon you. Touch the
white column! It beckons; it is reeling before you- it —
>>
"Huzza! Huzza! Peter has won the silver skates!
"PETER VAN HOLP! " shouted the crier. But who heard him?
"Peter Van Holp! " shouted a hundred voices; for he was the
favorite boy of the place. "Huzza! Huzza! "
Now the music was resolved to be heard.
It struck up a
lively air, then a tremendous march. The spectators, thinking
something new was about to happen, deigned to listen and to
look.
The racers formed in single file. Peter, being tallest, stood
first. Gretel, the smallest of all, took her place at the end.
Hans, who had borrowed a strap from the cake-boy, was near
the head.
Three gayly twined arches were placed at intervals upon the
river, facing the Van Gleck pavilion.
Skating slowly, and in perfect time to the music, the boys
and girls moved forward, led on by Peter. It was beautiful to
see the bright procession glide along like a living creature. It
curved and doubled, and drew its graceful length in and out
among the arches; whichever way Peter, the head, went, the
body was sure to follow. Sometimes it steered direct for the
centre arch; then, as if seized with a new impulse, turned away
and curled itself about the first one; then unwound slowly, and
bending low, with quick snake-like curvings, crossed the river,
passing at length through the farthest arch.
When the music was slow, the procession seemed to crawl
like a thing afraid; it grew livelier, and the creature darted for-
ward with a spring, gliding rapidly among the arches, in and
out, curling, twisting, turning, never losing form, until at the
shrill call of the bugle rising above the music it suddenly
resolved itself into boys and girls, standing in double semicircle
before Madame Van Gleck's pavilion.
Peter and Gretel stand in the centre, in advance of the others.
Madame Van Gleck rises majestically. Gretel trembles, but feels
VIII-299
## p. 4770 (#564) ###########################################
MARY MAPES DODGE
4770
that she must look at the beautiful lady. She cannot hear what
is said, there is such a buzzing all around her. She is thinking
that she ought to try and make a courtesy, such as her mother
makes to the meester, when suddenly something so dazzling is
placed in her hand that she gives a cry of joy.
Then she ventures to look about her. Peter too has some-
thing in his hands. "Oh, oh! how splendid! " she cries; and
"Oh! how splendid! " is echoed as far as people can see.
་
Meantime the silver skates flash in the sunshine, throwing
dashes of light upon those two happy faces.
"Mevrouw Van Gend sends a little messenger with her
bouquets, one for Hilda, one for Carl, and others for Peter and
Gretel. "
―――――――
At sight of the flowers, the Queen of the Skaters becomes
uncontrollable. With a bright stare of gratitude, she gathers
skates and bouquet in her apron, hugs them to her bosom, and
darts off to search for her father and mother in the scattering
crowd.
## p. 4771 (#565) ###########################################
4771
JOHN DONNE
(1573-1631)
HE memory of Dr. Donne must not, cannot die, as long as
men speak English," wrote Izaak Walton, "whilst his con-
versation made him and others happy. His life ought to
be the example of more than that age in which he died. "
Born in 1573, all the influences of the age in which Donne lived
nourished his large nature and genius. Shakespeare and Marlowe
were nine years older than he; Chapman fourteen; Spenser, Lyly,
and Richard Hooker each twenty; while Sir Philip Sidney counted
one year less. Lodge and Puttenham were
grown men, and Greene and Nash riotous
boys. In the following year Ben Jonson
«< came forth to warm our ears," and soon
after we have his future co-worker Inigo
Jones. It was the time of a multitude of
poets,- Drayton, the Fletchers, Beaumont,
Wither, Herrick, Carew, Suckling, and
others. Imagination was foremost, and was
stimulated by vast discoveries. Debates
upon ecclesiastical reform, led by Wyclif,
Tyndal, Knox, Foxe, Sternhold, Hopkins,
and others, had prepared the way; and the
luminous literatures of Greece and Italy,
but recently brought into England, had
made men's spirits receptive and creative. It was a period of vast
conceptions, when men discovered themselves and the world afresh.
JOHN DONNE
Under such outward conditions Donne was born, in London, "of
good and virtuous parents," says Walton, being descended on his
mother's side from no less distinguished a personage than Sir Thomas
More. In 1584, when he was eleven years old, with a good command
both of French and Latin, he passed from the hands of tutors at
home to Hare Hall, a much frequented college at Oxford. Here he
formed a friendship with Henry Wotton, who, after the poet's death,
collected the material from which Walton wrote his tender and sin-
cere 'Life of Donne. '
After leaving Oxford he traveled for three years on the Continent,
and on his return in 1572 became a member of Lincoln's Inn, with
intent to study law; but his law never, says Walton, "served him
## p.
4772 (#566) ###########################################
4772
JOHN DONNE
for other use than an ornament and self-satisfaction. " While a mem-
ber of Lincoln's Inn he became one of the coterie of the poets of his
youth. To this time are to be referred those of his 'Divine Poems'
which show him a sincere Catholic. Stirred by the increasing differ-
ences between the Romanist and the Anglican denominations, Donne
turned toward theological questions, and finally cast his lot with the
new doctrines. His large nature, impetuously reacting from the
asceticism to which he had been bred, turned to excess and overbold-
ness in action, and an occasional coarseness of phrasing in his poems.
The first of his famous 'Satires' are dated 1593, and all were prob-
ably written before 1601. During this time also he squandered his
father's legacy of £3000. In 1596, when the Earl of Essex defeated the
Spanish navy and pillaged Cadiz, Donne, now one of the first poets
of the time, was among his followers. "Not long after his return
into England
the Lord Ellesmere, the Keeper of the Great
Seal,
taking notice of his learning, languages, and other
abilities, and much affecting his person and behavior, took him to be
his chief secretary, supposing and intending it to be an introduction to
some weighty employment in the State;
and did always use
him with much courtesy, appointing him a place at his own table. "
Here he met the niece of Lady Ellesmere, the daughter of Sir
George More, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower,-whom at Christmas,
1600, he married, despite the opposition of her father.
Sir George,
transported with wrath, obtained Donne's imprisonment; but the poet
finally regained his liberty and his wife, Sir George in the end forgiv-
ing the young couple. "Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part
spent in many chargeable travels, books, and dear-bought experience,
he [being] out of all employment that might yield a support for him-
self and wife. " The depth and intensity of Donne's feeling for this
beautiful and accomplished woman are manifested, says Mr. Norton,
in all the poems known to be addressed to her, such as The Anni-
versary' and 'The Token. '
Of The Valediction Forbidding Mourning' Walton declares:—“I
beg leave to tell that I have heard some critics, learned both in lan-
guages and poetry, say that none of the Greek or Latin poets did
ever equal them;" while from Lowell's unpublished Lecture on
Poetic Diction' Professor Norton quotes the opinion that "This poem
is a truly sacred one, and fuller of the soul of poetry than a whole
Alexandrian Library of common love verses. »
•
-
During this period of writing for court favors, Donne wrote many
of his sonnets and studied the civil and canon law. After the death
of his patron Sir Francis in 1606, Donne divided his time between
Mitcham, whither he had removed his family, and London, where he
frequented distinguished and fashionable drawing-rooms. At this
## p. 4773 (#567) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4773
time he wrote his admirable epistles in verse, The Litany,' and
funeral elegies on Lady Markham and Mistress Bulstrode; but those
poems are merely ❝occasional," as he was not a poet by profession.
At the request of King James he wrote the 'Pseudo-Martyr,' pub-
lished in 1610. In 1611 appeared his funeral elegy An Anatomy of
the World,' and one year later another of like texture, 'On the Prog-
ress of the Soul,' both poems being exalted and elaborate in thought
and fancy.
The King, desiring Donne to enter into the ministry, denied all
requests for secular preferment, and the unwilling poet deferred his
decision for almost three years. All that time he studied textual
divinity, Greek, and Hebrew. He was ordained about the beginning
of 1615. The King made him his chaplain in ordinary, and promised
other preferments. "Now," says Walton, "the English Church had
gained a second St. Austin, for think none was so like him before
his conversion, none so like St. Ambrose after it; and if his youth
had the infirmities of the one, his age had the excellences of the
other, the learning and holiness of both. "
In 1621 the King made him Dean of St. Paul's, and vicar of St.
Dunstan in the West. By these and other ecclesiastical emoluments
"he was enabled to become charitable to the poor and kind to his
friends, and to make such provision for his children that they were
not left scandalous, as relating to their or his profession or quality. "
His first printed sermons appeared in 1622. The epigrammatic
terseness and unexpected turns of imagination which characterize the
poems, are found also in his discourses. Three years later, during a
dangerous illness, he composed his 'Devotion. ' He died on the 31st
of March, 1631.
"Donne is full of salient verses," says Lowell in his 'Shakespeare
Once More,' "that would take the rudest March winds of criticism
with their beauty; of thoughts that first tease us like charades, and
then delight us with the felicity of their solution. " There are few in
which an occasional loftiness is sustained throughout, but this occa-
sional excellence is original, condensed, witty, showing a firm and
strong mind, clear to a degree almost un-English. His poetry has
somewhat of the stability of the Greeks, though it may lack their
sweetness and art. His grossness was the heritage of his time. He
is classed among the "metaphysical poets," of whom Dr. Johnson
wrote: "They were of very little care to clothe their notions with
elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which
are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to
adorn their thoughts. " It was in obedience to such a dictum, and to
Dryden's suggestion, doubtless, that Pope and Parnell recast and
re-versified the 'Satires. '
-
## p. 4773 (#568) ###########################################
4772
for other use the
ber of Lincoln's
youth. To th
which show }
ences betwe
turned tow
new doct
asceticis
ness in
Th
ably
fath
ST
с
ared two years after his
the seventeenth century.
his harsh and abrupt versi-
difficult to understand. The
Poems of John Donne,' edited by
The Poems of John Donne,' from
edited by Charles Eliot Norton (1895),
WANT
ཀཱ ཎ…ཨསྶསུཏནྟུ
*******
ཙིཏྟཎྞན་དཧཧི
***
3006
s in this volume are taken.
THE UNDERTAKING
HAVE done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
It were but madness now t' impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he which can have learned the art
To cut it, can find none.
So, if I now should utter this,
Others (because no more
Such stuff to work upon there is)
Would love but as before:
But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes;
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.
If, as I have, you also do
Virtue attired in women see,
And dare love that and say so too,
And forget the He and She;
And if this love, though placed so,
From profane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they do, deride;
Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
## p. 4773 (#569) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4775
A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
A$
S VIRTUOUS men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say "No";
So let us melt and make no noise,
No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;
"Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less eyes, lips, hands to miss.
Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if the other do,
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
¦
## p. 4774 (#570) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4774
The first edition of Donne's poems appeared two years after his
death. Several editions succeeded during the seventeenth century.
In the more artificial eighteenth century his harsh and abrupt versi-
fication and remote theorems made him difficult to understand. The
best editions are 'The Complete Poems of John Donne,' edited by
Dr. Alexander Grosart (1872); and 'The Poems of John Donne,' from
the text of the edition of 1633, edited by Charles Eliot Norton (1895),
from whose work the citations in this volume are taken.
THE UNDERTAKING
HAVE done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
It were but madness now t' impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he which can have learned the art
To cut it, can find none.
So, if I now should utter this,
Others (because no more
Such stuff to work upon there is)
Would love but as before:
But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes;
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.
If, as I have, you also do
Virtue attired in women see,
And dare love that and say so too,
And forget the He and She;
And if this love, though placed so,
From profane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they do, deride;
Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
## p. 4775 (#571) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4775
A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
A$
S VIRTUOUS men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say "No";
So let us melt and make no noise,
No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less eyes, lips, hands to miss.
Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansiòn,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if the other do,
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
## p. 4776 (#572) ###########################################
4776
JOHN DONNE
SONG
GⓇ
O AND catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Then, when thou return'st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
Nowhere
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not: I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true when you met her,
And last till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.
LOVE'S GROWTH
I
SCARCE believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude and season as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
But if this medicine love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence
But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,
And of the sun his working vigor borrow,
## p. 4777 (#573) ###########################################
JOHN DONNE
4777
Love's not so pure and abstract as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their muse,
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
And yet no greater, but more eminent,
Love by the spring is grown;
As in the firmament
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
Gentle love-deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
From love's awakened root do bud out now.
If, as in water stirred, more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Thou, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee;
And though each spring do add to love new heat,
As princes do in times of action get
New taxes and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate the spring's increase.
SONG
WEETEST Love, I do not go
For weariness of thee,
SWE
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter Love for me:
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best
To use myself in jest
Thus by feigned deaths to die.
Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here to-day;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way.
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.
Oh, how feeble is man's power,
That, if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
## p. 4778 (#574) ###########################################
4778
JOHN DONNE
But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to advance.
When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste;
Thou art the best of me.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfill:
But think that we
Are but turned aside to sleep:
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.
## p. 4779 (#575) ###########################################
4779
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
(1821-1881)
BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
N CERTAIN respects Dostoevsky is the most characteristically
national of Russian writers. Precisely for that reason, his
work does not appeal to so wide a circle outside of his
own country as does the work of Turgénieff and Count L. N. Tolstoy.
This result flows not only from the natural bent of his mind and
temperament, but also from the peculiar vicissitudes of his life as
compared with the comparatively even tenor of their existence, and
the circumstances of the time in which he lived. These circum-
stances, it is true, were felt by the writ-
ers mentioned; but practically they affected
him far more deeply than they did the
others, with their rather one-sided training;
and his fellow-countrymen-especially the
young of both sexes- were not slow to ex-
press their appreciation of the fact. His
special domain was the one which Turgén-
ieff and Tolstoy did not understand, and
have touched not at all, or only incident-
ally, the great middle class of society, or
what corresponds thereto in Russia.
FEODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Through his father, Mikhail Andréevitch
Dostoevsky, Feodor Mikhailovitch belonged
to the class of "nobles," - that is to say,
to the gentry; through his mother, to the respectable, well-to-do
merchant class, which is still distinct from the other, and was even
more so during the first half of the present century; and in personal
appearance he was a typical member of the peasant class. The
father was resident physician in the Marie Hospital for the Poor in
Moscow, having entered the civil service at the end of the war of
1812, during which he had served as a physician in the army. In
the very contracted apartment which he occupied in the hospital,
Feodor was born - one of a family of seven children, all of whom,
with the exception of the eldest and the youngest, were born there
-on October 30th (November 11th), 1821. The parents were very
upright, well-educated, devoutly religious people; and as Feodor ex-
pressed it many years later to his elder brother, after their father
## p. 4780 (#576) ###########################################
4780
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
died, "Do you know, our parents were very superior people, and they
would have been superior even in these days. " The children were
brought up at home as long as possible, and received their instruction
from tutors and their father. Even after the necessity of preparing
the two elder boys for a government institution forced the parents
to send them to a boarding-school during the week, they continued
their strict supervision over their associates, discouraged nearly all
friendships with their comrades, and never allowed them to go into
the street unaccompanied, after the national custom in good families,
even at the age of seventeen or more.
Feodor, according to the account of his brothers and relatives,
was always a quiet, studious lad, and he with his elder brother
Mikhail spent their weekly holidays chiefly in reading, Walter Scott
and James Fenimore Cooper being among their favorite authors;
though Russian writers, especially Pushkin, were not neglected. Dur-
ing many of these years the mother and children passed the sum-
mers on a little estate in the country which the father bought, and
it was there that Feodor Mikhailovitch first made acquaintance with
the beauties of nature, to which he eloquently refers in after life,
and especially with the peasants, their feelings and temper, which
greatly helped him in his psychological studies and in his ability to
endure certain trials which came upon him. There can be no doubt
that his whole training contributed not only to the literary tastes
which the famous author and his brother cherished throughout their
lives, but to the formation of that friendship between them which
was stronger than all others, and to the sincere belief in religion and
the profound piety which permeated the spirit and the books of
Feodor Mikhailovitch.
In 1837 the mother died, and the father took his two eldest sons
to St. Petersburg to enter them in the government School of Engi
neers. But the healthy Mikhail was pronounced consumptive by
the doctor, while the sickly Feodor was given a certificate of perfect
health. Consequently Mikhail was rejected, and went to the Engi-
neers' School in Revel, while Feodor, always quiet and reserved, was
left lonely in the St. Petersburg school. Here he remained for three
years, studying well, but devoting a great deal of time to his pas-
sionately beloved literary subjects, and developing a precocious and
penetrating critical judgment on such matters. It is even affirmed
that he began or wrote the first draft of his famous book 'Poor
People,' by night, during this period; though in another account he
places its composition later. After graduating well as ensign in 1841,
he studied for another year, and became an officer with the rank of
sub-lieutenant, and entered on active service, attached to the draught-
ing department of the Engineers' School, in August 1843.
## p. 4781 (#577) ###########################################
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOÉVSKY
4781
A little more than a year later he resigned from the service, in
order that he might devote himself wholly to literature. His father
had died in the mean time, and had he possessed any practical
talent he might have lived in comfort on the sums which his
guardian sent him. But throughout his life people seemed to fleece
him at will; he lost large sums at billiards with strangers, and other-
wise; he was generous and careless; in short, he was to the end
nearly always in debt, anxiety, and difficulties. Then came the first
important crisis in his life. He wrote (or re-wrote) 'Poor People';
and said of his state of mind, as he reckoned up the possible pecun-
iary results, that he could not sleep for nights together, and "If my
undertaking does not succeed, perhaps I shall hang myself. " The
history of that success is famous and stirring. His only acquaintance
in literary circles was his old comrade D. V. Grigorovitch (also well
known as a writer), and to him he committed the manuscript. His
friend took it to the poet and editor Nekrásoff, in the hope that it
might appear in the 'Collection' which the latter was intending to
publish. Dostoevsky was especially afraid of the noted critic Bye-
linsky's judgment on it: "He will laugh at my 'Poor People,' said
he; "but I wrote it with passion, almost with tears. "
He spent the evening with a friend, reading with him, as was the
fashion of the time, Gogol's 'Dead Souls,' and returned home at four
o'clock in the morning. It was one of the "white nights" of early
summer, and he sat down by his window. Suddenly the door-bell
rang, and in rushed Grigorovitch and Nekrásoff, who flung them-
selves upon his neck. They had begun to read his story in the
evening, remarking that "ten pages would suffice to show its qual-
ity. " But they had gone on reading, relieving each other as their
voices failed them with fatigue and emotion, until the whole was
finished. At the point where Pokrovsky's old father runs after his
coffin, Nekrásoff pounded the table with the manuscript, deeply
affected, and exclaimed, "Deuce take him! " Then they decide to
hasten to Dostoevsky: "No matter if he is asleep-we will wake
him up.
This is above sleep. "
This sort of glory and success was exactly of that pure, unmixed
sort which Dostoevsky had longed for. When Nekrásoff went to
Byelinsky with the manuscript of 'Poor People,' and announced, "A
new Gogol has made his appearance! " the critic retorted with sever-
ity, "Gogols spring up like mushrooms among us. " But when he
had read the story he said, "Bring him hither, bring him quickly;"
and welcomed Dostoevsky when he came, with extreme dignity and
reserve, but exclaimed in a moment, "Do you understand yourself
what sort of a thing this is that you have written ? » From that
moment the young author's fame was assured, and he became known
## p. 4782 (#578) ###########################################
4782
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOÉVSKY
and popular even in advance of publication in a wide circle of lit-
erary and other people, as was the fashion of those days in Russia.
When the story appeared, the public rapturously echoed the judg-
ment of the critics.
The close friendship which sprang up between Byelinsky and Dos-
toevsky was destined, however, to exert an extraordinary influence
upon Dostoevsky's career, quite apart from its critical aspect. Bye-
linsky was an atheist and a socialist, and Dostoevsky was brought
into relations with persons who shared those views, although he him-
self never wavered, apparently, in his religious faith, and was never
in harmony with any other aspirations of his associates except that
of freeing the serfs. Notwithstanding this, he became involved in the
catastrophe which overtook many visitors, occasional or constant, of
the "circles" at whose head stood Petrashevsky. The whole affair is
known as the Conspiracy of Petrashevsky. During the '40's the
students at the St. Petersburg University formed small gatherings
where sociological subjects were the objects of study, and read the
works of Stein, Haxthausen, Louis Blanc, Fourier, Proudhon, and
other similar writers. Gradually assemblies of this sort were formed
outside of the University. Petrashevsky, an employee of the Depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs, who had graduated from the Lyceum and
the University, and who was ambitious of winning power and a repu-
tation for eccentricity, learned of these little clubs and encouraged
their growth. He did not however encourage their close association
among themselves, but rather, entire dependence on himself, as the
centre of authority, the guide; and urged them to inaugurate a sort of
propaganda. Dostoevsky himself declared, about thirty years later,
that "the socialists sprang from the followers of Petrashevsky; they
sowed much seed. " He has dealt with them and their methods in
his novel Demons'; though perhaps not with exact accuracy. But
they helped him to an elucidation of the contemporary situation,
which Turgénieff had treated in Virgin Soil. ' The chief subject
of their political discussions was the emancipation of the serfs, and
many of Petrashevsky's followers reckoned upon a rising of the serfs
themselves, though it was proved that Dostoevsky maintained the
propriety and necessity of the reform proceeding from the govern-
ment. This was no new topic; the Emperor Nicholas I. had already
begun to plan the Emancipation, and it is probable that it would
have taken place long before it did, had it not been for this very
conspiracy. From the point of view of the government, the move-
ment was naturally dangerous, especially in view of what was taking
place in Europe at that epoch. Dostoevsky bore himself critically
toward the socialistic writings and doctrines, maintaining that in
their own Russian system of workingmen's guilds with reciprocal
## p. 4783 (#579) ###########################################
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
4783
bonds there existed surer and more normal foundations than in all
the dreams of Saint-Simon and all his school. He did not even visit
very frequently the circle to which he particularly belonged, and was
rarely at the house of Petrashevsky, whom many personally disliked.
(
But on one occasion, as he was a good reader, he was asked to
read aloud Byelinsky's famous letter to Gogol, which was regarded.
as a victorious manifest of "Western" (i. e. , of socialistic) views.
This, technically, was propagating revolution, and was the chief
charge against him when the catastrophe happened, and he, together
with over thirty other "Petrashevtzi," was arrested on April 23d
(May 5th), 1849. In the Peter-Paul Fortress prison, where he was
kept for eight months pending trial, Dostoevsky wrote The Little
Hero,' two or three unimportant works having appeared since 'Poor
People. ' At last he, with several others, was condemned to death
and led out for execution. The history of that day, and the analysis
of his sensations and emotions, are to be found in several of his
books: 'Crime and Punishment,' The Idiot,' 'The Karamazoff Broth-
ers. At the last moment it was announced to them that the Em-
peror had commuted their sentence to exile in varying degrees, and
they were taken to Siberia. Alexei Pleshtcheeff, then twenty-three
years of age, the man who sent Byelinsky's letter to Dostoevsky, was
banished for a short term of years to the disciplinary brigade in
Orenburg; and when I saw him in St. Petersburg forty years later,
I was able to form a faint idea of what Dostoevsky's popularity must
have been, by the way in which he, -a man of much less talent, origi-
nality, and personal power, - was surrounded, even in church, by
adoring throngs of young people. Dostoevsky's sentence was "four
years at forced labor in prison; after that, to serve as a common
soldier"; but he did not lose his nobility and his civil rights, being
the first noble to retain them under such circumstances.
The story of what he did and suffered during his imprisonment is
to be found in his Notes from the House of the Dead,' where,
under the disguise of a man sentenced to ten years' labor for the
murder of his wife, he gives us a startling, faithful, but in some
respects a consoling picture of life in a Siberian prison. His own
judgment as to his exile was, "The government only defended itself;"
and when people said to him, "How unjust your exile was! " he
replied, even with irritation, "No, it was just. The people them-
selves would have condemned us. " Moreover, he did not like to give
benefit readings in later years from his 'Notes from the House of the
Dead,' lest he might be thought to complain. Besides, this catas-
trophe was the making of him, by his own confession; he had be-
come a confirmed hypochondriac, with a host of imaginary afflictions
and ills, and had this affair not saved him from himself he said that
## p. 4784 (#580) ###########################################
4784
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
he "should have gone mad. " It seems certain, from the testimony
of his friend and physician, that he was already subject to the epi-
leptic fits which he himself was wont to attribute to his imprison-
ment; and which certainly increased in severity as the years went
on, until they occurred once a month or oftener, in consequence of
overwork and excessive nervous strain. In his novel The Idiot,'
whose hero is an epileptic, he has made a psychological study of his
sensations before and after such fits, and elsewhere he makes allu-
sions to them.
After serving in the ranks and being promoted officer when he
had finished his term of imprisonment, he returned to Russia in 1859,
and lived first at Tver; afterward, when permitted, in St. Petersburg.
The history of his first marriage — which took place in Siberia, to
the widow of a friend-is told with tolerable accuracy in his 'Humbled
and Insulted,' which also contains a description of his early strug-
gles and the composition of 'Poor People,' the hero who narrates
the tale of his love and sacrifice being himself. Like that hero, he
tried to facilitate his future wife's marriage to another man. He
was married to his second wife, by whom he had four children, in
1867, and to her he owed much happiness and material comfort. It
will be seen that much is to be learned concerning our author from
his own novels, though it would hardly be safe to write a biography
from them alone. Even in Crime and Punishment,' his greatest
work in a general way, he reproduces events of his own life, medita-
tions, wonderfully accurate descriptions of the third-rate quarter of
the town in which he lived after his return from Siberia, while en-
gaged on some of his numerous newspaper and magazine enterprises.
This journalistic turn of mind, combined in nearly equal measures
with the literary talent, produced several singular effects.
It ren-
dered his periodical Diary of a Writer' the most enormously popu-
lar publication of the day, and a success when previous ventures had
failed, though it consisted entirely of his own views on current topics
of interest, literary questions, and whatever came into his head. On
his novels it had a rather disintegrating effect.
