It is superfluous, after such competent testimony, to insist upon the life-likeness and the truth to nature of his portraits.

The effect of his books on a reader is overwhelming, even stunning and nerve-shattering.
One further point is to be noted: that notwithstanding the immense number of characters presented to the reader by Dostoevsky, they all belong to a very limited number of types, which are repeated, with slight variations, in all his romances.

Thus, in conformity with the doctrine of the "native-soilers," he places at the foundation of the majority of his works one of the two following types: (1) The gentle type of the man overflowing with tender affection of utter self-sacrifice, ready to forgive everything, to justify everything, to bear himself compassionately towards the treachery of the girl he loves, and to go on loving her, even to the point of removing the obstacles to her marriage with another man, and so forth.

Such is the hero of "Crime and Punishment"; such is Prince Myshkinh in "The Idiot," and so on; (2) The rapacious type, the type of the egoist, brimming over with passion, knowing no bounds to his desires, and restrained by no laws, either human or divine.

Such are: Stavrogin in "Devils," Dmitry Karamazoff ("The Karamazoff Brothers"), and so forth.