“... The proposed publication consists of a number of critical essays. The author’s goal is not to give a more or less objective, complete picture of any aspect, trend, moment in world literature; his goal is frankly subjective. First of all, he would like to show the living soul of the writer behind the book - a unique, unique, never-repeated form of existence; then depict the action of this soul - sometimes separated from us by centuries and nations, but closer than those among whom we live - on the mind, will, heart, on the entire inner life of the critic, as a representative of a certain generation. This is precisely the greatness of the great, that time does not destroy them, but renews them: each new age gives them, as it were, a new body, a new soul, in its own image and likeness. ..."The collection includes essays: "Acropolis", "Marcus Aurelius", "Pliny the Younger", "Calderon", "Cervantes", "Goethe", "Montagne", "Flaubert", "Ibsen", "Dostoevsky", " Goncharov", "Turgenev", "Maikov", "Pushkin".