Chapter 9

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.

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING

As 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.

SONG

Go 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, 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

Sweetest Love, I do not go For weariness of thee, 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! 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.

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOÉVSKY

(1821-1881)

BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD

In certain respects Dostoévsky 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 circumstances, it is true, were felt by the writers 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 express their appreciation of the fact. His special domain was the one which Turgénieff and Tolstoy did not understand, and have touched not at all, or only incidentally,--the great middle class of society, or what corresponds thereto in Russia.

Through his father, Mikhail Andréevitch Dostoévsky, 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 expressed it many years later to his elder brother, after their father 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. During many of these years the mother and children passed the summers 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 Engineers. 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 Engineers' 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 passionately 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 draughting department of the Engineers' School, in August 1843.

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 otherwise; 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 pecuniary 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. Dostoévsky was especially afraid of the noted critic Byelinsky'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 themselves upon his neck. They had begun to read his story in the evening, remarking that "ten pages would suffice to show its quality." 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 Dostoévsky: "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 Dostoévsky 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 severity, "Gogols spring up like mushrooms among us." But when he had read the story he said, "Bring him hither, bring him quickly;" and welcomed Dostoévsky 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 and popular even in advance of publication in a wide circle of literary and other people, as was the fashion of those days in Russia. When the story appeared, the public rapturously echoed the judgment of the critics.

The close friendship which sprang up between Byelinsky and Dostoévsky was destined, however, to exert an extraordinary influence upon Dostoévsky's career, quite apart from its critical aspect. Byelinsky was an atheist and a socialist, and Dostoévsky was brought into relations with persons who shared those views, although he himself 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 Department of Foreign Affairs, who had graduated from the Lyceum and the University, and who was ambitious of winning power and a reputation 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. Dostoévsky 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 Dostoévsky maintained the propriety and necessity of the reform proceeding from the government. 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 movement was naturally dangerous, especially in view of what was taking place in Europe at that epoch. Dostoévsky bore himself critically toward the socialistic writings and doctrines, maintaining that in their own Russian system of workingmen's guilds with reciprocal 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, Dostoévsky 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 Brothers.' At the last moment it was announced to them that the Emperor 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 Dostoévsky, 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 Dostoévsky's popularity must have been, by the way in which he,--a man of much less talent, originality, and personal power,--was surrounded, even in church, by adoring throngs of young people. Dostoévsky'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 themselves 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 catastrophe was the making of him, by his own confession; he had become a confirmed hypochondriac, with a host of imaginary afflictions and ills, and had this affair not saved him from himself he said that he "should have gone mad." It seems certain, from the testimony of his friend and physician, that he was already subject to the epileptic fits which he himself was wont to attribute to his imprisonment; 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 allusions 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 struggles 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, meditations, wonderfully accurate descriptions of the third-rate quarter of the town in which he lived after his return from Siberia, while engaged on some of his numerous newspaper and magazine enterprises.