But he lived too long in Rome.

The Russian mind in general is much inclined to mysticism, and Little Russia, in Gogol's boyhood, was exceptionally permeated with exaggerated religious sentiment.

Mysticism seems to be peculiarly fatal to Russian writers of eminence; we have seen how Von Vizin and Zhukovsky were affected toward the end of their lives; we have a typical and even more pronounced example of it in a somewhat different form at the present time in Count L.N.Tolstoy.

Lermontoff had inclined in that direction.

Hence, it is not surprising that the moral and physical atmosphere of Rome, during a too prolonged residence there, eventually ruined Gogol's mind and health, and extinguished the last sparks of his genius, especially as even in his school-days he had shown a marked tendency (in his letters to his mother) to religious exaltation.