lid’s Reviews > Letters of Fyodor Dostoevsky to his family and friends > Status Update

I was always amazed by the superb humanity that glowed in Dostoevsky's soul, despite his grievous destiny, despite the prison, the exile, the terrible malady, and the eternal want of money. Not less was I astonished by his rare guilelessness and gentleness, which never left him even in his worst hours.

Ah, my dear Alexander Yegorovitch, God has made men
so, once for all !" he used to say. He sympathized with all who were abandoned by destiny, with all the unhappy, ill, and poor. Everyone who knew him well knows of his extraordinary goodness
of heart. How pathetic is his solicitude, for instance, about his brother Michael's family, about little Pasha Issayev, and many others besides !

Is this remarkable man to languish here for ever as a private ? It would be too terrible. I am sorely distressed about him; I love him like a brother, and honour him like a father."
Dostoevsky's indulgence for everyone was quite extraordinary. He found excuses for even the worst of human traits, and explained them all by defective education, the influence of environment, and inherited temperament.

Destiny has brought me into contact with a man of rare intellect and disposition the gifted young author Dostoevsky. I owe him much; his words, counsels, and ideas will be a source of strength to me throughout all my life.

His hard fate had, as it were, turned him to stone.
But he suffered much, and was frightfully run down so much so that sometimes he could not stir a foot. And yet he remained goodtempered, and tried to forget his physical pain in laughter and joking.

And if that's really so (and if I am clever enough not to let myself be caught by the standing laws), why should I not kill, rob, steal, or at any rate live at the expense of others ? For I shall die, and all the rest will die and utterly vanish !

Now suppose that there is no God, and no personal immortality (personal immortality and God are one and the same an identical idea). Tell me then: Why am I to live decently and do good, if I die irrevocably here below ? If there is no immortality, I need but live out my appointed day, and let the rest go hang.

And the majority of our students men and women have no true education. How then can they be useful to humanity ! They study only just enough to get paid appointments as soon as may be. ..

Without war, people grow torpid in riches and comfort, and lose the power of thinking and feeling nobly ; they get brutal, and fall back into barbarism. I am not speaking of individuals, but of whole races. Without pain, one comprehends not joy. Ideals are purified by suffering, as gold is by fire. Mankind must strive for his Heaven.