It is always the particular soul, and the particular act or episode, as the flower of the particular soul--the act or episode by which its quality comes to the test--in which he interests us.

The episode with Makovkina had occurred after five years of his hermit life.

An episode of humour or kindness touches and amuses him here and there--a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful.