"Here is the
unvarnished fact--give heed to it!" is the unwritten motto. The author
avoids betraying, either explicitly or implicitly, the tendency of his own
sympathies; not because he fears to have them known, but because he holds
it to be his office simply to portray, and to leave judgment thereupon
where, in any case, it must ultimately rest--with the world of his
readers. He tells us what is; it is for us to consider whether it also
must be and shall be. Turguenieff is an artist by nature, yet his books
are not intentionally works of art; they are fragments of history,
differing from real life only in presenting such persons and events as are
commandingly and exhaustively typical, and excluding all others. This
faculty of selection is one of the highest artistic faculties, and it
appears as much in the minor as in the major features of the narrative. It
indicates that Turguenieff might, if he chose, produce a story as
faultlessly symmetrical as was ever framed. Why, then, does he not so
choose? The reason can only be that he deems the truth-seeming of his
narrative would thereby be impaired. "He is only telling a story," the
reader would say, "and he shapes the events and persons so as to fit the
plot.
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