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- Impressions of Russian Literature
- IV
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IV.
With Gogol a new inspiration came to Europe from
Russia. With him, authors ceased to describe themselves.
He was wholly absorbed by his subject, and the reader no
longer received the impression of the spiritual life of a man
of the world and a cosmopolite, but of the national
peculiarities of the subject as it was displayed in the soul of
a genuine Russian. Gogol possessed an extraordinarily
artistic talent, which two or three times rose to genius,
but which speedily declined, because it was a genius
without moral views, which was supported neither by
culture nor character.
Nikolaï Vasilyevitch Gogol (1809-1852) was by birth a
Little Russian, and as a child grew up in the midst of
traditions of the bold and eventful Cossack troopers in the
Ukraine. His father, an impoverished landed proprietor,
possessed no mean capacities as a narrator and actor,
which the son inherited from him. As a boy, he had
already displayed a considerable power of observation of
human stupidity and weakness.
In St. Petersburg, he tried without success the career
of an actor, and then that of a government official, when,
by the aid of Pushkin, he obtained a position as professor
of history in the university. He utterly failed in this,
on account of a lack of preparatory knowledge and
defective education, and abandoned it for the profession of an
author.
He made his début as a humorist, — a strong and
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