It ranks, in my mind, with the scene towards the beginning of
"Crime and Punishment," when in the inn the drunken father relates his
daughter's "shame." These pages are unique. They reach the highest and
most terrible pathos that the novelist's art has ever reached. And if an
author's reputation among people of taste depended solely on his success
with single scenes Dostoievsky would outrank all other novelists, if not
all poets. But it does not. Dostoievsky's works--all of them--have grave
faults. They have especially the grave fault of imperfection, that fault
which Tourgeniev and Flaubert avoided. They are tremendously unlevel,
badly constructed both in large outline and in detail. The fact is that
the difficulties under which he worked were too much for the artist in
him. Mr. Baring admits these faults, but he does not sufficiently dwell on
them. He glances at them and leaves them, with the result that the final
impression given by his essay is apt to be a false one. Nobody, perhaps,
ever understood and sympathized with human nature as Dostoievsky did.
Indubitably nobody ever with the help of God and good luck ever swooped so
high into tragic grandeur. But the man had fearful falls. He could not
trust his wings. He is an adorable, a magnificent, and a profoundly sad
figure in letters.
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