He was and wanted
to be nothing in particular, and yet, as we read these letters of his,
we feel gradually form within ourselves the conviction that he was a
hero--more than that, _the_ hero of our time.
[Footnote 8: _Letters of Anton Tchehov_. Translated by Constance
Garnett (Chatto & Windus).]
It is significant that, in reading Tchehov's letters, we do not
consider him under the aspect of an artist. We are inevitably fascinated
by his character as a man, one who, by efforts which we have most
frequently to divine for ourselves from his reticences, worked on the
infinitely complex material of the modern mind and soul, and made it in
himself a definite, positive, and most lovable thing. He did not throw
in his hand in face of his manifold bewilderments; he did not fly for
refuge to institutions in which he did not believe; he risked
everything, in Russia, by having no particular faith in revolution and
saying so. In every conjuncture of his life that we can trace in his
letters he behaved squarely by himself and, since he is our great
exemplar, by us.
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