urgenev effectively invents a new form, the literary sketch, to impart a new kind of content. What is brilliant about these sketches, which are in part nature meditation, and in part, biographical sketch is how Turgenev allows each character to speak for themselves. As a result, we feel like we are hearing something we have never heard before, the natural voice of the people. By allowing people to speak for themselves, Turgenev gives us a truer and more genuine idea of how people, serf and gentry, really think and relate. Each sketch begins with a detailed description of the natural surroundings he is walking through. These descriptions give us insight into Turgenev's cast of mind which is infinitely receptive, and discerning, even romantic and delicate at times as when he describes staring up through the forest canopy and imagining he is staring up at the world from beneath a vast body of water. These magnificent introductions set the mood for the character sketch to come. When he meets a serf it is as if he is merely continuing his communion with
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