Chekhov Will Seek Out The Key Situation

When People Complain Of The Decay Of Manners They Have In Mind Not The Impudent Abbreviations Of The Crowd, But The Decline In Bowing And Scraping And In Speaking Of One's Employer As "the Master." What The Rich Mean By The Good Manners Of The Poor Is Usually Not Civility, But Servility.

Swinburne Was An Absurd Character. He Was A Bird Of Showy Strut And Plumage. One Could Not But Admire His Glorious Feathers; But, As Soon As He Began To Moult ... One Saw How Very Little Body There Was Underneath.

Were I A Philosopher, I Should Write A Philosophy Of Toys, Showing That Nothing Else In Life Need To Be Taken Seriously, And That Christmas Day In The Company Of Children Is One Of The Few Occasions On Which Men Become Entirely Alive.

Jane Austen Has Often Been Praised As A Natural Historian. She Is A Naturalist Among Tame Animals. She Does Not Study Men (as Dostoevsky Does) In His Wild State Before He Has Been Domesticated. Her Men And Women Are Essentially Men And Women Of The Fireside.

Chekhov Will Seek Out The Key Situation In The Life Of A Cabman Or A Charwoman, And Make Them Glow For A Brief Moment In The Tender Light Of His Sympathy.