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in my own name alone, but in behalf of a large part of
the young people of Russia, with whom you have not
had time to become adequately acquainted. I should
have said it to you, day before yesterday, at the D—s’;
but could not in the few moments we talked together.
You regretted having known, comparatively, so few of the
young people. That is partly because the time of your
visit was very unfortunately chosen, so far as the
Russian youth are concerned. It is just the time of
examination in all of the public institutions of education. But,
entirely apart from that, the Russian youth could not
make themselves known to you. Life deprives us of its
highest good,—freedom, and all the happiness which is
inseparable from it; but do not believe us insensible to
that which alone gives meaning and value to human life.
Quite the contrary. If fate has sent us so few blessings,
we love those we do receive all the more dearly, and
prize them the more highly. We prize above everything
the science which emancipates. It is not allowed
to the Russian youth to express in writing what they
feel; but it would pain me, as a patriot, if you should
get an unjust impression of them. You once called
Rudin the typical representative of the Russian
weakness of character. “Weakness!” I exclaimed to myself
when I heard it. Oh, no! Do not forget that the
Russian literature is only an incomplete reflex of the life
and character of the Russian people. Do not forget
that they would make us deaf and dumb, and that we
are still too few in number not to be compelled to be so.
But we are really not like Rudin. Rudin is intelligent,
and has a certain quality of intellectual perception, but
has no depth of soul; he loves no one and no thing. He
is allured by the beauty of ideas; he is not drawn on
by true and earnest love for the human race. It is on
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