Though Tchehov's genius is, strictly speaking, inimitable, it deserves a
much exacter study than it has yet received. The publication of this
volume of his letters[8] hardly affords the occasion for that; but it
does afford an opportunity for the examination of some of the chief
constituents of his perfect art. These touch us nearly because--we
insist again--the supreme interest of Tchehov is that he is the only
great modern artist in prose. He belongs, as we have said, to us. If he
is great, then he is great not least in virtue of qualities which we may
aspire to possess; if he is an ideal, he is an ideal to which we can
refer ourselves, He had been saturated in all the disillusions which we
regard as peculiarly our own, and every quality which is distinctive of
the epoch of consciousness in which we are living now is reflected in
him--and yet, miracle of miracles, he was a great artist. He did not rub
his cheeks to produce a spurious colour of health; he did not profess
beliefs which he could not maintain; he did not seek a reputation for
universal wisdom, nor indulge himself in self-gratifying dreams of a
millennium which he alone had the ability to control.
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