href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@22046@[email protected]#img-020" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Beggar Collecting for a Church Fund

  4. Tartar Day-Labourer

  5. Tramps—the Seated Figure is the Original of Luka

  6. A Page from Gorki's Last Work

  7. The Bare-footed Brigade on the Volga-Quay, at Nijni Novgorod

  8. Love-Scene between Polja and Nil, Act 3 of "The Bezemenovs"

  9. Gambling-Scene, Act 2 of "The Doss-house"

10. A Confabulation, Act 2 of "The Doss-house"

11. Concluding Scene, Act 3 of "The Doss-house"

12. The Actor, in "The Doss-house"

13. Vasilissa, the Keeper of "The Doss-house"

14. Nastja, servant in "The Doss-house"

15. The Baron, in "The Doss-house"

16. Letter to Herr Max Reinhardt

Characterisation; Environment; Gorki's predecessors; Reaction and pessimism; Literature and society; Gorki's youth; Hard times; A vagrant life; Journalist days; Rapid success; The new heroes; Creatures once men; Vagabond philosophy; Accusing symbolism.

Within the last few years a new and memorable note has been sounded among the familiar strains of Russian literature. It has produced a regeneration, penetrating and quickening the whole. The author who proclaimed the new voice from his very soul has not been rejected. He was welcomed on all sides with glad and ready attention. Nor was it his compatriots alone who gave ear to him. Other countries, Germany in particular, have not begrudged him a hearing; as has too often been the case for native genius. The young Russian was speedily accounted one of the most widely read in his own land and in adjacent countries.

Success has rarely been achieved so promptly as by Maxim Gorki. The path has seldom been so smooth and free from obstacles.

Not but that Gorki has had his struggles. But what are those few years, in comparison with the decades through which others have had, and still have, to strive and wrestle? His fight has rather been for the attainment of a social status, of intellectual self-mastery and freedom, than for artistic recognition. He was recognised, indeed, almost from the first moment when he came forward with his characteristic productions. Nay, he was more than recognised. He was extolled, and loved, and honoured. His works were devoured.

Maxim Gorki (in 1900)

This startling success makes a closer consideration and appreciation of the author's works and personality incumbent on us.

A black, sullen day in March. Rain and vapour. No movement in the air. The horizon is veiled in the grey mists that rise from the earth, and blend in the near distance with the dropping pall of the Heavens.

And yet there is a general sense of coming Spring. The elder-bushes are bursting, the buds swelling. A topaz shimmer plays amid the shadowy fringes of the light birch stems, and on the budding tops of the lime-trees. The bushes are decked with catkins. The boughs of the chestnut glisten with pointed reddish buds. Fresh green patches are springing up amid the yellow matted grass of the road-side.

The air is chill, and saturated with moisture. Everything is oppressed, and exertion is a burden.…

Suddenly a wind springs up, and tears the monotonously tinted curtains of the sky asunder, tossing the clouds about in its powerful arms like a child at play, and unveiling a glimpse of the purest Heaven… only to roll up a thick dark ball of cloud again next moment. Everything is in motion.

The mist clears off, the trees are shaken by the wind till the drops fall off in spray.

The sky gets light, and then clouds over again.

But the weary, demoralising, despairing monotony has vanished.

Life is here.

Spring has come.

With all its atmosphere, with all its force and vigour, with its battles, and its faith in victory.

It is somewhat after this fashion that the personality of the young Russian author, and his influence on Russia, and on Russian Literature, may be characterised.

In order rightly to grasp the man and his individual methods, together with his significance for his mother-country, we must know the environment and the relations on which Gorki entered. Thus only shall we understand him, and find the key to his great success in Russia, and the after-math of this success in foreign countries.

Maxim Gorki is now just thirty-seven years old. Ten years ago he was employed in the repairing works of the railway in Tiflis as a simple artisan. To-day he ranks among the leading intellects of Russia.

This is an abrupt leap, the crossing of a deep cleft which separates two worlds that tower remote on either side. The audacity of the spring can only be realised when we reflect that Maxim Gorki worked his way up from the lowest stratum, and never had any regular schooling.

The most subtle analysis of Gorki's talent would, however, be inadequate to cover his full significance as a writer. It is only in connection with the evolution of Russian society and Russian literature that Gorki, as a phenomenon, becomes intelligible.

The educated Russian does not regard his national literature merely as the intellectual flower of his nation; it must essentially be a mirror of actual social occurrences, of the cultural phase in which any particular work originated.

The Russian author does not conceive his task to lie exclusively in pandering to the aesthetic enjoyment of his readers, in exciting