170 



DISCOVKHY 



worki rs in the field of life have arrived ; their hearts 

 are filled with love for the earth soiled by us ; they will 

 ploiiph up the field of God laying bare its heart, and it 

 will shine like a new bright sun for all of us, and every- 

 body will feel warm and happy." 



No social class in Russia escaped the crushing and 

 fatal curse of the cultural backwardness of the country. 

 In the story Three Days, Gorki shows us the depths of 

 utter misery into which the blind force of ignorance, 

 prejudice, and drudgery has driven the peasants. 

 Through the dim windows of wretched cottages are 

 looking at us the ailing, suffering, and sadly obedient 

 faces of those doomed to be ever submerged in darkness 

 and sorrow. The story called TJie Fire, dealing witli 

 the artisan class, presents the same picture of unhappy 

 and disorderly life, void of all sense and goodness. 

 The minds and hearts of the industrial workers seem 

 also to be depressed and demoralised by the cruelty, 

 slavishness, greed, and cjTiicism of everydaj' existence. 

 But moving in the dark shadows of dismal reality, 

 Gorki remains ever radiant with his belief in a brighter 

 future. He feels within himself the moving of fresh 

 life, and there are many characters in his novels and 

 plays who reflect the author's optimistic mood. In 

 the story Three Days, the village schoolmaster, 

 Pokrovski, gives forth this message : " Men of sincere 

 and generous hearts are daily entering life in hundreds 

 of thousands of villages, and some day Russia will see 

 itself intelligent and honest. Only do not forget that 

 God's spark shines in every human soul, and one 

 should try and blow this spark of life into a great 

 flame." Gorki has never lost his faith in the goodness 

 of human nature. He sees that the ugliness and miserj' 

 of life is only like a layer of dirt on the free human soul. 

 His heroes, bruised, shaken, and disgraced as some of 

 them are, preserve certain internal qualities which 

 excite sympathy in the reader's heart. A hereditary 

 and professional thief, Vasili Pepel, in the drama 

 The Lower Depths, is at the same time a dreamy, sensi- 

 tive, and pure man. 



The source of Gorki's inspiration is his belief in the new 

 man, who is to be free and strong and beautiful. He is 

 thrilled by the thought of the infinite capacity of human 

 nature. Some of his poems and sketches are exultant 

 hymns to the glory of " tragically beautiful Man." 



" Man ! " exclaims Gorki. " I see his proud head and 

 his daring deep eyes, and in them — rays of fearless, 

 powerful thought, thought that understood the wonder- 

 ful harmony of the universe, thought which in the 

 moments of tiredness creates gods, and in the periods 

 of activity — pulls them down." 



"Possessing only the power of Thought, which is 

 sometimes like lightning, and sometimes cold and quiet 

 like a sword, the free and proud man walks far in front 

 of men, towering above life." 



But Gorki has created no superman. His belief in 

 human possibility is based on his study and knowledge 

 of ordinary man, whose divine soul calls him to live 

 upward, " towards the vastness." 



"The new man wants," he explains, "to create a new 

 order based on the unshakable principles of freedom, 

 beauty, and respect for men." This ideal can only be 

 realised in the order of life free from inequality, 

 privileges, masters and men. Gorki foresees in some 

 distant future a reconstructed social order within 

 which collectivism and individualism will not be 

 " antinomies," but will form a living union and bring 

 about a unification of the instincts with the idealistic 

 will. Such is the present stage in the evolution of 

 Gorki's ideas. He has arrived at worshipping collec- 

 tivism and its creative power. From this it is clear 

 why he supports Lenin in his wild experiment in chang- 

 ing the individualist peasant Russia into a commu- 

 nistic proletarian Russia. Gorki came with a " song 

 glorifying the madness of the brave," and he thinks 

 Lenin to be " perhaps the greatest of all madmen," 

 but he pleads that Russia should be left alone to her 

 madness or wisdom. " Two men are fighting on the 

 earth against each other : the Red man and the Black 

 man," he says in one of his tales published in June last 

 j'ear. " The strength of the Black man is in his 

 insatiable thirst for power over men. The strength 

 of the Red man is in his passionate desire to see that 

 life is sensible and bright." And Gorki remains true 

 to his original faith. 



WORKS OF GORKI TR.\NSLATED INTO ENGLISH 

 Heartache and the Old Woman Izergil. (Maclaren & Co.) 

 Creatures that once were Men. Introduction by Chesterton. 



(Alston Rivers.) 

 The Outcasts and Other Stories. (Fisher Unwin.) 

 The Orloff Couple and Malva. (Wilham Heinemann.) 

 Three of Them. (Fisher Unwin.) 

 Twenty-six Men and a Girl. (Greenback Library.) 

 Tale of Two Countries. (Werner Laurie.) 

 Foma Gordyeef. (Fisher Unwin.) 

 My Childhood. (Werner Laurie.) 

 In the World. (Werner Laurie.) 



The Rhine Boundary and 

 Talleyrand, 1814-15 



By R. B. Mowat, M.A. 



Fclhw and Assistant Tiilor <)/ Corpus Chrisli College, Oxford 



The only Peace Conference which can be compared 

 in importance with that of 1919 is the Congress of 

 Menna, in 1814-15. The organisers of the Conference 

 of Paris had constantly in their minds the precedents 



