Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton Chekhovthere is the frequent use of words quite unsuitable in stories of yourtype. “Accompaniment,” “disc,” “harmony,” such words spoil theeffect. You often talk of waves. There is a strained feeling and a sortof circumspection in your descriptions of educated people; that isnot because you have not observed educated people sufficiently, youknow them, but you don’t seem to know from what side to approachthem.How old are you? I don’t know you, I don’t know where you camefrom or who you are, but it seems to me that while you are stillyoung you ought to leave Nizhni and spend two or three years rubbingshoulders with literature and literary people; not to learn tocrow like the rest of us and to sharpen your wits, but to take thefinal plunge head first into literature and to grow to love it. Besides,the provinces age a man early. Korolenko, Potapenko, Mamin, Ertel,are first-rate men; you would perhaps at first feel their companyrather boring, but in a year or two you would grow used to themand appreciate them as they deserve, and their society would morethan repay you for the disagreeableness and inconvenience of life inthe capital ….365