This position, like all such appointments, called for such immense energy and such varied qualifications, that it was difficult for them to be found united in any one man.

And since a man combining all the qualifications was not to be found, it was at least better that the post be filled by an honest than by a dishonest man.

And Stepan Arkadyevitch was not merely an honest man--unemphatically--in the common acceptation of the words, he was an honest man--emphatically--in that special sense which the word has in Moscow, when they talk of an "honest" politician, an "honest" writer, an "honest" newspaper, an "honest" institution, an "honest" tendency, meaning not simply that the man or the institution is not dishonest, but that they are capable on occasion of taking a line of their own in opposition to the authorities.