Yes, each time that there arises in Russia a movement of thought, it becomes clear that the movement sinks deep into the Slavonic nature where it would but have skimmed the surface of other nations.—But why am I talking like this? Whither am I tending? It is indeed shameful that an author who long ago reached man's estate, and was brought up to a course of severe introspection and sober, solitary self-enlightenment, should give way to such jejune wandering from the point. To everything its proper time and place and turn. As I was saying, it does not lie in me to take a virtuous character for my hero: and I will tell you why. It is because it is high time that a rest were given to the "poor, but virtuous" individual; it is because the phrase "a man of worth" has grown into a by-word; it is because the "man of worth" has become converted into a horse, and there is not a writer but rides him and flogs him, in and out of season; it is because the "man of worth" has been starved until he has not a shred of his virtue left, and all that remains of his body is but the ribs and the hide; it is because the "man of worth" is for ever being smuggled upon the scene; it is because the "man of worth" has at length forfeited every one's respect. For these reasons do I reaffirm that it is high time to yoke a rascal to the shafts. Let us yoke that rascal.
Dead Souls, by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
The first of these papers appeared in 1847, and in the same year he left Russia in the train of Pauline Viardot, a singer and actress, to whom he had been devoted for three or four years and with whom he maintained relations for the rest of his life
