He was equally scathing in his descriptions of the foreign writers of his time, with the exception of the Russians, particularly Turgenev, Pushkin and Gogol, whom he admired. Of Charles Dickens he wrote: "[He] is the greatest one among the pygmies. He has the misfortune of being paid by the line, and he loves money". He was even harsher toward the Germans: Goethe was "a great humbug", Kant was a "chaos of obscurity", and of Wagner he wrote: "There is nothing like the Germans for audacity in stupidity".
He was equally scathing in his descriptions of the foreign writers of his time, with the exception of the Russians, particularly Turgenev, Pushkin and Gogol, whom he admired. Of Charles Dickens he wrote: "[He] is the greatest one among the pygmies. He has the misfortune of being paid by the line, and he loves money". He was even harsher toward the Germans: Goethe was "a great humbug", Kant was a "chaos of obscurity", and of Wagner he wrote: "There is nothing like the Germans for audacity in stupidity".