'Polikushka,' a marvellously close study of the peasant types, but done with the subtle critical inflexions of an upper-class mind. It is Tchehov's peasant ancestry, crossed by the familiar experiences of a hard-worked country doctor, that in that wonderful creation 'Peasants reveals his complete intimacy with the harsh realities, the virtues and the vices of peasant existence.*

Tchehov's attitude to peasant life and Russian provincial life generally is that of the observer and commentator in 'My Life,'' The New Villa,'' In the Ravine.' To combat ignorance, inertia, apathy, savagery, as also the disease, drunkenness, and vice of provincial Russia, 'we must study and study and study, and we must wait a bit with our deep social movements; we are not mature enough for them yet, and to tell the truth we don't know anything about them. . . . Genuine social movements arise when there is knowledge; and the happiness of mankind in the future lies only in knowledge.' 'There is the same savagery, the same uniform boorishness, the same triviality as five hundred years ago in the people of the towns.' 'We talked of the fanaticism, the coarseness of feeling, the insignificance of these respectable families. . . . What good had they gained from all that had been said and written hitherto, if they were still possessed by the same spiritual darkness and hatred of liberty, as they were a hundred and three hundred years ago?'†

People in the mass, everywhere, are the same in all grades; at root there is the same stupidity, cruelty, and dishonesty at work in the press and the politicians as in the peasants; and the evils of human life can only be opposed by 'love and work, study and will.' The one thing essential is that we should understand; and 'it is the artist's job to show people what they are.' Sympathy and knowledge, insight and charity-these are the corner-stones of Tchehov's morality and also of his art. 'I thought people already knew that horse-stealing was wrong; but what's essential is to show the motives, the

* 'I have peasant blood in my veins, and you won't astonish me with peasant virtues. From my childhood I have believed in progress, and I could not help believing in it, since the difference between the time when I used to be thrashed and when they gave up thrashing me was tremendous' ('Letters of Tchehov,' p. 324).

† ‘My Life,' pp. 96, 157.

nature, the how and why of people's actions'—that is Tchehov's attitude. So in 'In the Ravine,' the cruel triumph of the hard, sly, unscrupulous Aksinya over her mild, sweet sister-in-law, Lipa, is recorded remorselessly. Aksinya gets all the family power and property into her own hands, and even turns her old father-inlaw out of doors. Hers is the success of the harsh, strong, callous world. But what is there left to offset this unceasing triumph of human greed and human stupidity? Only, in Tchehov's view, beauty and truth. 'And however great was wickedness, still the night was calm and beautiful, and everything on earth is only waiting to be made one with truth and justice, even as the moonlight is blended with the night.'

It is this element, the element of tenderness and sweetness of understanding, that forms the spiritual background of so many of of Tchehov's Tales, and dominates invisibly the coarse web of the human struggle and the petty net-work of human egoism. It is seen to perfection in that golden tale, steeped in hues of dying sunset, of the death of 'The Bishop.' But, like the colour in the evening sky, soon the good old man's virtues fade out of people's minds, in the stir of the appointment of the new suffragan bishop; 'and no one thought any more of Bishop Pyotr, and afterwards he was completely forgotten.' It is so in the exquisite 'Easter Eve,' with its magical, wistful softness of atmosphere, where the gentle lay-brother Jeronim grieves for his dead friend and brother-priest Nikolay, who wrote the most beautiful canticles, which nobody in the monastery appreciated. This floating atmosphere of charity, of tender humour, and so of compassion for ordinary human nature, which cannot be other than what it is, envelops A Nightmare,' a pathetic sketch of a parish priest's miserable poverty. We meet it again in 'Dreams,' the story of a guilty little convict's childish dreams of future happiness in Siberia, before he is crushed by the stern, bitter facts, a story where Tchehov's tender humour blends with irony in the strain peculiar to himself; and again, in 'The Letter,' that exquisite piece of humour, with its caressing allowances made for both the saints and the sinners. All these tales show Tchehov's rich, aesthetic sensibility weaving Vol. 236.-No. 469.

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the subtle spell of poetical harmonies; as also does 'The Kiss,' where the tedious round of regimental duties and boring details of the life of Ryabovitch, the shy and insignificant little officer, is steeped for a few days in his dreamy haze of love for the unknown lady who has kissed him in the dark, in mistake for her lover. Again, in 'The Exile' with its immense horizon of suffering and frustrated hopes, Tchehov evokes in the soul of a sick and desolate Tatar these wistful, mournful harmonies.

It is not merely the individual life, however, with its broken, shifting tangle of yearnings and regrets, that calls forth Tchehov's wistful compassionateness, but his recognition disentangles the irony in the very texture of life. Time's revenges or the irony of satisfied desires are treated in Ionitch,' 'A Teacher of Literature,' and The Lady with the Dog.' Yet one cannot say that Tchehov himself is 'disillusioned.' His sense of spiritual beauty is too strong; and his depth of acceptation of life's pattern forms, as it were, an aura enveloping his subject. This spiritual aura hovers about it and enwraps the gloomiest, greyest, most sardonic facts of life; death itself cannot diminish it. Examine Gusev,' a sketch of the death of two worn-out soldiers on board a steamer, when returning from the East, a sketch that is so 'modern' in its all-embracing outlook and bold acceptations as to shame nearly all our writers of to-day. It is so humanly broad, so tender, so infallibly true in its spiritual lightings, and it conveys the mystery of nature and all its transitory processes with sharp precision. In 'Gusev' there is a sharper consciousness of life's pulsating forces, of its inescapable laws and its evasive rhythms, than in any other 'modern.' Compare it with Tolstoy's wonderful Three Deaths,' and note how the tinge of 'science' that faintly colours 'Gusev' marks the advance of a new generation. The fluid, emotional receptivity of the Russian nature, which we have noted above, is seen here to gather force, like a wave, in its onward sweep. 'The Cattle-Dealers' is another fine example of Tchehov's sensitive response to every shade of movement and feeling in a scene before his eyes. His sensitive, indulgent observation of the play of human nature exhibits the drovers, the railway men, and even the unhappy cattle penned in their trucks, in a soft, restful

atmosphere. It is a slice of common life delightful in its spontaneous force, while other men pass by, unseeing, the charm of the human by-play, here revealed to the master's eye.

Tchehov's æsthetic charm culminates in 'The Steppe,' a tale in which his tender, fluid consciousness, infinitely delicate, mirrors in its pellucid depths the whole mirage of nature, variegated, wild and stern, elusive in its changing breath, in the vast bosom of the steppes. This consummate piece of art is not 'modern,' save in a few recurring notes. It is a record, seen through the magic glass of boyish memories, of the passing life of travelling merchants and wayfarers, journeying in old-world conditions. Tchehov is here looking backward, away from the new currents and atmospheres that his vision caught and reflected from the great ocean of contemporary life within Russia's boundaries. But when he looked forwards he caught and reflected with equal subtlety, with equal precision, the new vistas of our modern emotions and apprehensions, the new 'values' moral and intellectual of our modern vision. He has recorded his faith in our progress in his letter to Dagilev,* Modern culture is only the first beginning of work for a great future, work which will perhaps go on for tens of thousands of years in order that man may, if only in the remote future, come to know the truth of the real God. That is not, I conjecture, by seeking in Dostoevsky, but by clear knowledge, as one knows twice two are four.' By 'clear knowledge'—that was Tchehov's hope for men, a hope which in this era of Europe's violence and lying, shines afar off like a star.

EDWARD GARNETT.

*Letters of Tchehov,' p. 404.

Art. 4.-THE AIR RAIDS ON LONDON.

1. The Times' and other newspapers, passim.

2. The Times History of the War. Vols. VII, VIII, X, and XIX. London, 1916-1919.

3. London County Council. The Council and the War. Prepared by the Clerk of the Council. 1920.

4. All Clear: A brief record of the work of the London Special Constabulary, 1914-1919. By J. E. Preston Muddock. Everett, 1920.

5. The Specials: How they served London. By Colonel W. T. Reay. Heinemann, 1920.

ALTHOUGH the air raids made by the Germans on London during the years 1915-18 had not the decisive effect on the war which was anticipated by their authors, they form an important episode in the history of London. The story has not yet been told in a connected narrative. Voluminous details were published at the time, but they lack permanent interest, through the desire of the official Censor of the Press not to give information to the enemy. We were told vaguely, for instance, that bombs were dropped in the northern outskirts of London' or in a south-western district,' omitting all mention of the buildings or streets affected, and generally concealing the names of the killed. were not even informed of the number of casualties in the metropolis, the total being given only for the whole area of a raid. Even in 'The Times History of the War' the record is in many cases confined to the original official generalities. Many items of information have, however, from time to time come to light, including some, from German sources, published in The Times' in September 1920, and I am able to add some particulars from my own observation.

We

A German aeroplane dropped a bomb at Dover on Dec. 24, 1914; and on Christmas Day a German airman passed Sheerness under cover of a fog and flew far up the Thames. But it was not until May 17, 1915, that the first Zeppelin (LZ 38) came within sight of the lights of London. The first airship raid on London in force was on May 31, 1915. As we now look back on the work of the raiders, the preparations to combat them appear