{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_62045/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_62045","id":"gutenberg_62045","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62045","summary":null,"tags":["Authors, Russian -- 19th century -- Biography","Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Russian Literature","Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910"],"text":"[Illustration: LEO TOLSTOY]\n\n\n\n\n                              LEO TOLSTOY\n\n                                  BY\n                    G. K. CHESTERTON, G. H. PERRIS\n                                 ETC.\n\n\n                      WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                TORONTO\n                          COPP CLARK COMPANY\n                     LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\nLEO TOLSTOY                                                _Frontispiece_\n\nTOLSTOY AS AN OFFICER                                                  1\n\nTOLSTOY IN HIS STUDENT DAYS                                            2\n\nYASNAYA POLYANA, THE COUNTRY HOME OF COUNT TOLSTOY                     3\n\nTHE APPROACH TO THE PARK AT YASNAYA POLYANA                            4\n\nTHE GATEWAY-ENTRANCE TO YASNAYA POLYANA                                5\n\nTOLSTOY WITH HIS BICYCLE                                               6\n\n\u201cTHE TREE OF THE POOR\u201d                                                 7\n\nTOLSTOY, AN EARLY PORTRAIT                                             7\n\nCOUNT AND COUNTESS TOLSTOY                                             8\n\nLEO TOLSTOY (from a Sketch by Victor Prout)                            9\n\nCOUNT TOLSTOY AT WORK IN THE FIELDS                                   10\n\nFACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF TOLSTOY\u2019S MS.                               11\n\nCOUNT TOLSTOY, HIS WIFE, AND DAUGHTERS                                12\n\nTOLSTOY AT WORK IN HIS STUDY AT YASNAYA POLYANA                       13\n\nTOLSTOY WRITING AT HIS DESK                                           14\n\nONE OF H. R. MILLAR\u2019S ILLUSTRATIONS                                   15\n\nCOUNT TOLSTOY                                                         16\n\nA FAMOUS PAINTING OF TOLSTOY                                          17\n\nA PHOTOGRAPH OF COUNT TOLSTOY TAKEN AT YASNAYA POLYANA                18\n\nRUSSIAN JAILER AND WOMAN WARDER                                       19\n\nA TOLSTOY MEDALLION                                                   20\n\nTHE COVER OF THE TRACT \u201cWHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO\u201d             20\n\nONE OF THE POSTCARDS ISSUED IN MOSCOW IN 1898 TO COMMEMORATE\nTOLSTOY\u2019S LITERARY JUBILEE                                            21\n\nTWO OF THE POSTCARDS ISSUED AT MOSCOW IN 1898 TO COMMEMORATE\nTOLSTOY\u2019S LITERARY JUBILEE                                            22\n\nCOUNT TOLSTOY AT REST (from a Painting by R\u00e9pin)                      23\n\nTOLSTOY IN THE GROUNDS OF YASNAYA POLYANA                             24\n\nONE OF H. R. MILLAR\u2019S ILLUSTRATIONS                                   25\n\nONE OF MANY BUSTS OF COUNT TOLSTOY                                    26\n\nA RECENT PORTRAIT OF COUNT TOLSTOY                                    27\n\nTHE DEFENDANTS                                                        29\n\nTOLSTOY AND HIS DAUGHTER TATYANA                                      30\n\nCOUNT TOLSTOY AND HIS FAMILY                                          31\n\nLEO TOLSTOY (from a Portrait painted in 1884)                         33\n\nMASLOVA\u2019S RETURN TO THE WARD AFTER THE SENTENCE                       34\n\nLEO TOLSTOY, 1896 (from a Photograph)                                 35\n\n\n\n\nTOLSTOY\n\n\n[Illustration: TOLSTOY AS AN OFFICER]\n\nIf any one wishes to form the fullest estimate of the real character and\ninfluence of the great man whose name is prefixed to these remarks, he\nwill not find it in his novels, splendid as they are, or in his ethical\nviews, clearly and finely as they are conceived and expanded. He will\nfind it best expressed in the news that has recently come from Canada,\nthat a sect of Russian Christian anarchists has turned all its animals\nloose, on the ground that it is immoral to possess them or control them.\nAbout such an incident as this there is a quality altogether independent\nof the rightness or wrongness, the sanity or insanity, of the view. It\nis first and foremost a reminder that the world is still young. There\nare still theories of life as insanely reasonable as those which were\ndisputed under the clear blue skies of Athens. There are still examples\nof a faith as fierce and practical as that of the Mahometans, who swept\nacross Africa and Europe, shouting a single word. To the languid\ncontemporary politician and philosopher it seems doubtless like\nsomething out of a dream, that in this iron-bound, homogeneous, and\nclockwork age, a company of European men in boots and waistcoats should\nbegin to insist on taking the horse out of the shafts of the omnibus,\nand lift the pig out of his pig-sty, and the dog out of his kennel,\nbecause of a moral scruple or theory. It is like a page from some fairy\nfarce to imagine the Doukhabor solemnly escorting a hen to the door of\nthe yard and bidding it a benevolent farewell as it sets out on its\ntravels. All this, as I\n\n[Illustration: TOLSTOY IN HIS STUDENT DAYS]\n\nsay, seems mere muddle-headed absurdity to the typical leader of human\nsociety in this decade, to a man like Mr. Balfour, or Mr. Wyndham. But\nthere is nevertheless a further thing to be said, and that is that, if\nMr. Balfour could be converted to a religion which taught him that he\nwas morally bound to walk into the House of Commons on his hands, and he\ndid walk on his hands, if Mr. Wyndham could accept a creed which taught\nthat he ought to dye his hair blue, and he did dye his hair blue, they\nwould both of them be, almost beyond description, better and happier men\nthan they are. For there is only one happiness possible or conceivable\nunder the sun, and that is enthusiasm--that strange and splendid word\nthat has passed through so many vicissitudes, which meant, in the\neighteenth century the condition of a lunatic, and in ancient Greece the\npresence of a god.\n\n[Illustration: YASNAYA POLYANA, THE COUNTRY HOME OF COUNT TOLSTOY]\n\nThis great act of heroic consistency which has taken place in Canada is\nthe best example of the work of Tolstoy. It is true (as I believe) that\nthe Doukhabors have an origin quite independent of the great Russian\nmoralist, but there can surely be little doubt that their emergence into\nimportance and the growth and mental distinction of their sect, is due\nto his admirable summary and justification of their scheme of ethics.\nTolstoy, besides being a magnificent novelist, is one of the very few\nmen alive who have a real, solid, and serious view of life. He is a\nCatholic church, of which he is the only member, the somewhat arrogant\nPope and the somewhat submissive layman. He is one of the two or three\nmen in Europe, who have an attitude towards things so entirely their\nown, that we could supply their inevitable view on anything--a silk hat,\na Home Rule Bill, an Indian poem, or a pound of tobacco. There are three\nmen in existence who have such an attitude: Tolstoy, Mr. Bernard Shaw,\nand my friend Mr. Hilaire Belloc. They are all diametrically opposed to\neach other, but they all have this essential resemblance, that, given\ntheir basis of thought, their soil of conviction, their opinions on\nevery earthly subject grow there naturally, like flowers in a field.\nThere are certain views of certain things that they must take: they do\nnot form opinions, the opinions form themselves. Take, for instance, in\nthe case of Tolstoy, the mere list of miscellaneous objects which I\nwrote down at random above, a silk hat, a Home Rule Bill, an Indian\npoem, and a pound of tobacco. Tolstoy would say: \u201cI believe in the\nutmost possible simplification of life; therefore, this silk hat is a\nblack abortion.\u201d He would say: \u201cI believe in the utmost possible\nsimplification of life; therefore, this Home Rule Bill is a mere\npeddling compromise; it is no good to break up a centralised empire into\nnations, you must break the nation up into individuals.\u201d He would say:\n\u201cI believe in the utmost possible simplification of life; therefore, I\nam interested in this Indian poem, for Eastern ethics, under all their\napparent gorgeousness, are far simpler and more Tolstoyan than Western.\u201d\nHe would say: \u201cI believe in the utmost possible simplification of life;\ntherefore, this pound of tobacco is a thing of evil; take it away.\u201d\nEverything in the world, from the Bible to a bootjack, can be, and is,\nreduced by Tolstoy to this great fundamental Tolstoyan principle, the\nsimplification of life. When we deal with a body of opinion like this we\nare dealing with an incident in the history of Europe infinitely more\nimportant than the appearance of Napoleon Buonaparte.\n\n[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO THE PARK AT YASNAYA POLYANA]\n\nThis emergence of Tolstoy, with his awful and simple ethics, is\nimportant in more ways than one. Among other things it is a very\ninteresting commentary on an attitude which has been taken up for the\nmatter of half a century by all the avowed opponents of religion. The\nsecularist and the sceptic have denounced Christianity first and\n\n[Illustration: THE GATEWAY-ENTRANCE TO YASNAYA POLYANA]\n\nforemost, because of its encouragement of fanaticism; because religious\nexcitement led men to burn their neighbours, and to dance naked down the\nstreet. How queer it all sounds now. Religion can be swept out of the\nmatter altogether, and still there are philosophical and ethical\ntheories which can produce fanaticism enough to fill the world.\nFanaticism has nothing at all to do with religion. There are grave\nscientific theories which, if carried out logically, would result in the\nsame fires in the market-place and the same nakedness in the street.\nThere are modern \u00e6sthetes who would expose themselves like the Adamites\nif they could do it in elegant attitudes. There are modern scientific\nmoralists who would burn their opponents alive, and would be quite\ncontented if they were burnt by some new chemical process. And if any\none doubts this proposition--that fanaticism has nothing to do with\nreligion, but has only to do with human nature--let him take this case\nof Tolstoy and the Doukhabors. A sect of men start with no theology at\nall, but with the simple doctrine that we ought to love our neighbour\nand use no force against him, and they end in thinking it wicked to\ncarry a leather handbag, or to ride in a cart. A great modern writer who\nerases theology altogether, denies the validity of the Scriptures and\nthe Churches alike, forms a purely ethical theory that love should be\nthe instrument of reform, and ends by maintaining that we have no right\nto strike a man if he is torturing a child before our eyes. He goes on,\nhe develops a theory of the mind and the emotions, which might be held\nby the most rigid atheist, and he ends by maintaining that the sexual\nrelation out of which all humanity has come, is not only not moral, but\nis positively not natural. This is fanaticism as it has been and as it\nwill always be. Destroy the last copy of the Bible, and persecution and\ninsane orgies will be founded on Mr. Herbert Spencer\u2019s \u201cSynthetic\nPhilosophy.\u201d Some of the broadest thinkers of the Middle Ages believed\nin faggots, and some of the broadest thinkers in the nineteenth century\nbelieve in dynamite.\n\n[Illustration: TOLSTOY WITH HIS BICYCLE\n\n(Photographed in 1896)]\n\nThe truth is that Tolstoy, with his immense genius, with his colossal\nfaith, with his vast fearlessness and vast knowledge of life, is\ndeficient in one faculty and one faculty alone. He is not a mystic: and\ntherefore he has a tendency to go mad. Men talk of the extravagances and\nfrenzies that have been produced by mysticism: they are a mere drop in\nthe bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has\nkept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic. It is\nsignificant that, with all that has been said about the excitability of\npoets, only one English poet ever went mad, and he went mad from a\nlogical system of theology. He was Cowper, and his poetry retarded his\ninsanity for many years. So poetry, in which Tolstoy is deficient, has\nalways been a tonic and sanative thing. The only thing that has kept the\nrace of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley,\nthe night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism--the belief\nthat logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem.\n\nG. K. CHESTERTON.\n\n[Illustration: \u201cTHE TREE OF THE POOR\u201d\n\nWhere Tolstoy receives the peasants and listens with unwearying patience\nto their tales of distress]\n\n[Illustration: TOLSTOY, AN EARLY PORTRAIT]\n\n\n\n\nLEO TOLSTOY AS WRITER\n\n\nHalf the ignorance or misunderstanding of this greatest living figure in\nliterature comes of the attempt to judge him as we judge the specialised\nWestern novelist--an utterly futile method of approach. He is a Russian,\nin the first place. Had he come to Paris with Turguenieff, he might have\nbeen similarly de-nationalised, might possibly have developed into a\nwriter pure and simple; the world might so have gained a few great\nromances--it would have lost infinitely in other directions. Turguenieff\nwished it so. \u201cMy friend,\u201d he wrote to Tolstoy from his deathbed,\n\u201creturn to literature! Reflect that that gift comes to you whence\neverything comes to us. Ah! how happy I should be if I could think that\nmy prayer would influence you.... My friend, great writer of our Russian\nland, hear my entreaty!\u201d For\n\n[Illustration:\n\nCOUNT\nAND\nCOUNTESS\nTOLSTOY\n\nFrom a\nPortrait taken\nin\nSeptember 1895\n\n(Reproduced\nby kind permission\nfrom\n\u201cHow Count Tolstoy\nLives and Works,\u201d\nby\nP. A. Sergyeenko)\n]\n\nonce, the second greatest of modern Russians took a narrow view of\ncharacter and destiny. Genius must work itself out on its own lines.\nTolstoy remained a Russian from tip to toe--that is one of his supreme\nvalues for us; and he remained an indivisible personality. The artist\nand the moralist are inseparable in his works. \u201cWe are not to take \u2018Anna\nKar\u00e8nina\u2019 as a work of art,\u201d said Matthew\n\n[Illustration: LEO TOLSTOY, FROM A SKETCH BY VICTOR PROUT\n\n(Reproduced by kind permission of Mr. F. R. Henderson)]\n\nArnold; \u201cwe are to take it as a piece of life.\u201d The distinction is not\nvery satisfactorily stated, but the meaning is clear. So, too, W. D.\nHowells, in his introduction to an American edition of the \u201cSebastopol\nSketches\u201d: \u201cI do not know how it is with others to whom these books of\nTolstoy\u2019s have come, but for my part I cannot think of them as\nliterature in the artistic sense at all. Some people complain to me when\nI praise them that they are too long, too diffuse, too confused, that\nthe characters\u2019 names are hard to pronounce, and that the life they\nportray is very sad and not amusing. In the presence of these criticisms\nI can only say that I find them nothing of the kind, but that each\nhistory of Tolstoy\u2019s is as clear, as orderly, as brief, as something I\nhave lived through myself.... I cannot think of any service which\nimaginative literature has done the race so great as that which Tolstoy\nhas done in his conception of Kar\u00e8nina at that crucial moment when the\ncruelly outraged man sees that he cannot be good with dignity. This\nleaves all tricks of fancy, all effects of art, immeasurably behind.\u201d So\nmuch being said, however, we may be allowed to emphasise in this small\nspace the great qualities and achievements of Tolstoy as artist, rather\nthan the expositions of Christian Anarchism and the social philippics\nunder which those achievements have been somewhat hidden in recent\nyears.\n\n[Illustration: COUNT TOLSTOY AT WORK IN THE FIELDS]\n\nMorbid introspectiveness and the spirit of revolt inevitably colour what\nis best in nineteenth-century Russia. Born at Yasnaya Polyana (\u201cClear\nField\u201d), Tula, in 1828, and early orphaned, Tolstoy\u2019s youth\n\n[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF TOLSTOY\u2019S MS.\n\n(Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Nisbet & Co., from \u201cHow Count\nTolstoy Lives and Works,\u201d by P. A. Sergyeenko)]\n\nsynchronised with the period of reaction that brought the Empire to the\nhumiliating disasters of the Crimean War. No hope was left in the thin\nlayer of society lying between the two mill-stones of the Court and the\nserfs; none in the little sphere of art where Byronic romanticism was\nready to expire. The boy saw from the first the rottenness of the\npatriarchal aristocracy in which his lot seemed to be cast. Precocious,\nabnormally sensitive and observant, impatient of discipline and formal\nlearning, awkward and bashful, always brooding, not a little conceited,\nhe was a sceptic at fifteen, and left the University of Kazan in disgust\nat the stupid conventions of the time and place, without taking his\ndegree. \u201cChildhood, Boyhood, and Youth\u201d--which appeared in three\nsections between 1852 and 1857--tells the story of this period, though\nthe figure of Irtenieff is probably a projection rather than a portrait\nof himself, to whom he is always less fair, not to say merciful, than to\nothers. This book is a most uncompromising exercise in self-analysis. It\nis of great length, there is no plot, and few outer events are\nrecorded.\n\n[Illustration: COUNT TOLSTOY, HIS WIFE, AND DAUGHTERS]\n\nThe realism is generally morbid, but is varied by some passages of great\ndescriptive power, such as the account of the storm, and occasionally\nwith tender pathos, as in the story of the soldier\u2019s death, as well as\nby grimly vivid pages, such as the narrative of the mother\u2019s death. In\nthis earliest work will be found the seeds both of Tolstoy\u2019s artistic\ngenius and of his ethical gospel.\n\nAfter five years of mildly benevolent efforts among his serfs at Yasnaya\nPolyana (the disappointments of which he related a few years later in \u201cA\nLandlord\u2019s Morning,\u201d intended to have been part of a full novel to be\ncalled \u201cA Russian Proprietor\u201d), his elder brother Nicholas persuaded him\nto join the army, and in 1851 he was drafted to the Caucasus as an\nartillery officer. On this favourite stage of classic Russian romance,\nwhere for the first time he saw the towering mountains and the tropical\nsun, and met the rugged adventurous highlanders, Tolstoy felt his\nimagination stirred as Byron among the isles of Greece, and his early\nrevulsion against city life confirmed as Wordsworth amid the Lakes, as\nThoreau at Walden, by a direct call from Nature to his own heart. The\nlargest result of this experience was \u201cThe Cossacks\u201d (1852). Turguenieff\ndescribed this fine prose epic of the contact of civilised and savage\nman as \u201cthe best novel written in our language.\u201d \u201cThe Raid\u201d (or \u201cThe\nInvaders,\u201d as Mr. Dole\u2019s translation is entitled), dating from the same\nyear, \u201cThe Wood-Cutting Expedition\u201d (1855), \u201cMeeting an Old\nAcquaintance\u201d (1856), and \u201cA\n\n[Illustration: TOLSTOY AT WORK IN HIS STUDY AT YASNAYA POLYANA]\n\nPrisoner in the Caucasus\u201d (1862) are also drawn from recollections of\nthis sojourn, and show the same descriptive and romantic power. Upon the\noutbreak of the Crimean War the Count was called to Sebastopol, where he\nhad command of a battery, and took part in the defence of the citadel.\nThe immediate product of these dark months of bloodshed was the\nthrilling series of impressions reprinted from one of the leading\nRussian reviews as \u201cSebastopol Sketches\u201d (1856). From that day onward\nTolstoy knew and told the hateful truth about war and the thoughtless\npseudo-patriotism which hurries nations into fratricidal slaughter. From\nthat day there was expunged from his mind all the cheap romanticism\nwhich depends upon the glorification of the savage side of human nature.\nThese wonderful pictures of the routine of the battlefield established\nhis position in Russia as a writer, and later on created in Western\ncountries an impression like that of the canvases of Verestchagin.\n\n[Illustration: TOLSTOY WRITING AT HIS DESK.]\n\nFor a brief time Tolstoy became a figure in the old and new capitals of\nRussia by right of talent as well as birth. His very chequered\nfriendship with Turguenieff, one of the oddest chapters in literary\nhistory, can only be mentioned here. In 1857 he travelled in Germany,\nFrance, and Italy. It was of these years that he declared in \u201cMy\nConfession\u201d that he could not think of them without horror, disgust, and\npain of heart. The catalogue of crime which he charged against himself\nin his salvationist crisis of twenty years later must not be taken\nliterally; but that there was some ground for it we may guess from the\nscenic and incidental realism of the \u201cRecollections of a Billiard\nMarker\u201d (1856), and of many a later page. Several other powerful short\nnovels date from about this time, including \u201cAlbert\u201d and \u201cLucerne,\u201d both\nof which remind us of the Count\u2019s susceptibility to music; \u201cPolikushka,\u201d\na tale of peasant life; and \u201cFamily Happiness,\u201d the story of a marriage\nthat failed, a most clear, consistent, forceful, and in parts beautiful\npiece of work, anticipating in essentials \u201cThe Kreutzer Sonata\u201d that was\nto scandalise the world thirty years afterward.\n\n[Illustration: One of H. R. Millar\u2019s illustrations in the English\nedition of \u201cWhere Love is, there God is also,\u201d reproduced by kind\npermission of Messrs. Walter Scott, Ltd., the publishers]\n\nAfter all, it was family happiness that saved Leo Tolstoy. For the third\ntime the hand of death had snatched away one of the nearest to him--his\nbrother Nicholas. Two years later, in 1862, he married Miss Behrs,\ndaughter of the army surgeon in Tula--the most fortunate thing that has\nhappened to him in his whole life, I should think. Family\nresponsibilities, those novel and daring experiments in peasant\neducation which are recorded in several volumes of the highest interest,\nthe supervision of the estate, magisterial\n\n[Illustration: COUNT TOLSTOY]\n\nwork, and last, but not least, the prolonged labours upon \u201cWar and\nPeace\u201d and \u201cAnna Kar\u00e8nina\u201d fill up the next fifteen years. \u201cWar and\nPeace\u201d (1864-9) is a huge panorama of the Napoleonic campaign of 1812,\nwith preceding and succeeding episodes in Russian society. These four\nvolumes display in their superlative degree Tolstoy\u2019s indifference to\nplot and his absorption in individual character; they are rather a\nseries of scenes threaded upon the fortunes of several families than a\nset novel; but they contain passages of penetrating psychology and vivid\ndescription, as well as a certain amount of anarchist theorising. Of\nthis work, by which its author became known in the West, Flaubert (how\nthe name carries us backward!) wrote: \u201cIt is of the first order. What a\npainter and what a psychologist! The two first volumes are sublime, but\nthe third drags frightfully. There are some quite Shakespearean things\nin it.\u201d The artist\u2019s hand was now strengthening for his highest\nattainment. In 1876 appeared \u201cAnna Kar\u00e8nina,\u201d his greatest, and as he\nintended at the time (but Art is not so easily jilted), his last novel.\nThe fine qualities of this book, which, though long, is\n\n[Illustration: A FAMOUS PAINTING OF TOLSTOY]\n\ndramatically unified and vitally coherent, have been so fully recognised\nthat I need not attempt to describe them. Mr. George Meredith has\ndescribed Anna as \u201cthe most perfectly depicted female character in all\nfiction,\u201d which, from the author of \u201cDiana,\u201d\n\n[Illustration:\n\nA\nPHOTOGRAPH\nOF\nCOUNT TOLSTOY\nTAKEN AT\nYASNAYA POLYANA\n\n(Reproduced\nfrom \u201cAnna Kar\u00e8nina\u201d\nby kind permission\nof\nMessrs Walter Scott Ltd.)\n]\n\nis praise indeed. Parallel with the main subject of the illicit love of\nAnna and Vronsky there is a minor subject in the fortunes of Levin and\nKitty, wherein the reader will discover many of Tolstoy\u2019s own\nexperiences. Matthew Arnold complained that the book contained too many\ncharacters and a burdensome multiplicity of actions, but praised its\nauthor\u2019s extraordinarily fine perception and no less extraordinary\ntruthfulness, and frankly revelled in Anna\u2019s\n\n[Illustration: RUSSIAN JAILER AND WOMAN WARDER\n\n\u201cThe jailer, rattling the iron padlock, opened the door of the cell.\u201d\n\n(From an illustration by Pasternak in the English Edition of\n\u201cResurrection,\u201d reproduced by kind permission of Mr. F. R. Henderson)]\n\n\u201clarge, fresh, rich, generous, delightful nature.\u201d \u201cWhen I had ended my\nwork \u2018Anna Kar\u00e8nina,\u2019\u201d said Tolstoy in \u201cMy Confession\u201d (1879-82), \u201cmy\ndespair reached such a height that I could do nothing but think of the\nhorrible condition in which I found myself.... I saw only one\nthing--Death. Everything else was a lie.\u201d Of that spiritual crisis\nnothing need be said here except that it only intensified, and did not\nreally, as it seemed to do, vitally change, principles and instincts\nwhich had possessed Tolstoy from the beginning. His subsequent ethical\nand religious development may be traced in a long series of books and\npamphlets, of which the most important are \u201cThe Gospels Translated,\nCompared, and Harmonised\u201d (1880-2), \u201cWhat I Believe\u201d [\u201cMy Religion\u201d],\nproduced abroad in 1884, \u201cWhat is to be Done?\u201d (1884-5), \u201cLife\u201d (1887),\n\u201cWork\u201d (1888), \u201cThe Kingdom of God is Within You\u201d (1893), \u201cNon-Action\u201d\n(1894), \u201cPatriotism and Christianity\u201d (1896)--a\n\n[Illustration: A TOLSTOY MEDALLION]\n\n[Illustration: THE COVER OF THE TRACT \u201cWHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS\nALSO\u201d]\n\nscathing attack upon militarism in general and the Franco-Russian\nAlliance in particular--\u201cThe Christian Teaching\u201d (1898), and \u201cThe\nSlavery of our Times\u201d (1900). Various letters on the successive famines\nand on the religious persecutions in Russia deserve separate mention;\nthey remind us that since the failure of the revolutionary movement\nmiscalled \u201cNihilism,\u201d Tolstoy has gradually risen to the position of the\none man who can continue with impunity a public crusade, in the foreign\nand the clandestine presses at least, against all Imperial authority and\nsocial maladjustments. Mr. Tchertkoff, Mr. Aylmer Maude, the\n\u201cBrotherhood Publishing Co.,\u201d and the \u201cFree Age Press\u201d deserve praise\nfor their efforts to popularise these and other works of the Count in\nthoroughly good translations. In \u201cWhat is Art?\u201d (1898), not content with\nthe bare utilitarian argument that it is merely a means of social union,\nhe launched a _jehad_ against all modern ideas of Art which rely upon a\nconception of beauty and all ideas of beauty into which pleasure enters\nas a leading constituent. A short but luminous essay on \u201cGuy de\nMaupassant and the Art of Fiction\u201d is a more satisfactory contribution\nto the subject.\n\n[Illustration: ONE OF THE POSTCARDS ISSUED IN MOSCOW IN 1898 TO\nCOMMEMORATE TOLSTOY\u2019S LITERARY JUBILEE]\n\nIt is more to our purpose to note that in this volcanic and fecund if\nfundamentally simple personality the artist has dogged the steps of the\nevangelist to the last. \u201cMaster and Man\u201d (1895) is one of the most\nexquisite short stories ever written. \u201cThe Death of Ivan Ilyitch\u201d (1884)\nand \u201cResurrection\u201d (1899) are in some ways the most powerful of all his\nworks. The much-condemned \u201cDominion of Darkness\u201d (1886) and \u201cKreutzer\nSonata\u201d (1889) will be more fairly judged when the average Englishman\nhas learned the supreme merit of that uncompromising truthfulness which\ngives nobility to every line the grand Russian ever wrote. To submit a\nwork like \u201cResurrection\u201d to the summary treatment which the ordinary\nnovel receives and merits is absurd. It is a large picture of the fall\nand rise of man done by the swift and restless hand of a master who\nstands in a category apart, with an eye that sees externals and\nessentials with like accuracy and rapidity. Because the dramatic quality\nof these living pictures lies, not in their organisation into a\nconventionally limited plot, but first in the challenging idea upon\nwhich they are founded, then the inexorable development of individual\ncharacters, and ever and anon in the grip of particular episodes, the\nlittle critics scoff. The idea, the characters, the episodes are all too\nreal and vital for their precious British self-complacency. The\ngrandmotherly _Athen\u00e6um_\n\n[Illustration: TWO OF THE POSTCARDS ISSUED AT MOSCOW IN 1898 TO\nCOMMEMORATE TOLSTOY\u2019S LITERARY JUBILEE]\n\npermits some person to describe this Promethean figure as \u201ca precious\nvase that has been broken,\u201d and can now only be pieced together to make\n\u201cthe ornament of a museum,\u201d--which reminds me that I heard a lecturer\nbefore a well-known literary society in London describe him lately as a\n\u201cscavenger,\u201d and that a city bookseller assured me the other day that\nthere was something almost amounting to a boycott against his fiction in\nthe shops. The publisher who is preparing a complete edition of\nTolstoy--enormous work!--knows better, knows that Tolstoy is one of the\nworld-spirits whose advance out of the obscurity of a benighted land\ninto the largest contemporary circulation is but a foretaste of an\ninfluence that will soon be co-extensive with the commonwealth of\nthinking men and women.\n\n[Illustration:\n\nCOUNT TOLSTOY\nAT REST.\n\nFrom a Painting\nby R\u00e9pin.\n\n(Reproduced by kind\npermission from\n\u201cHow Tolstoy Lives\nand Works,\u201d\nby\nP. A. Sergyeenko)\n]\n\nHis service to literature is precisely the same as his service to\nmorals. Like Bunyan and Burns, Dickens and Whitman, he throws down in a\nworld of decadent conventions the gauge of the democratic ideal. As he\ncalls the politician and the social reformer back to the land and the\ncommon people, so he calls the artist back to the elemental forces ever\nat work beneath the surface-show of nature and humanity. With an\nextraordinary penetration into the hidden recesses of character, he\njoins a terrible truthfulness, and that absolute\n\n[Illustration: TOLSTOY IN THE GROUNDS OF YASNAYA POLYANA]\n\nsimplicity of manner which we generally associate with genius. He is a\nrealist, not merely of the outer, but more especially of the inner life.\nThere is no staginess, no sentimentality, in his work. He has no heroes\nin our Western sense, none, even, of those sensational types of\npersonality which glorify the name of his Northern contemporary, Ibsen.\nHis style is always natural, direct, irresistible as a physical process.\nHe has rarely strayed beyond the channel of his own experience, and the\nreader who prefers breadth to depth of knowledge must seek elsewhere. He\nhas little humour, but a grimly satiric note has sometimes crept into\nhis writing, as Archdeacon Farrar will remember. Of artifice designed\nfor vulgar entertainment he knows nothing; in the world of true art,\nwhich is the wine-press of the soul of man, he stands, a princely\nfigure. Theories, prescriptions, and discussions are forgotten, and we\nthink only with love and reverence of this modern patriarch, so lonely\namid the daily enlarging congregation of the hearts he has awakened to a\nsense of the mystery, the terror, the joy, the splendour of human\ndestinies.\n\nG. H. PERRIS.\n\n\n\n\nTOLSTOY\u2019S PLACE IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE\n\n\nThe justness of the word _great_ applied to a nation\u2019s writers is\nperhaps best tested by simply taking each writer in turn from out his\nAge, and seeing how far our conception of his Age remains unaffected. We\nmay take away hundreds of clever writers, scores of distinguished\ncreators, and the Age remains before our eyes, solidly unaffected by\ntheir absence; but touch one or two central figures, and lo! the whole\nframework of the Age gives in your hands, and you realise that the\nWorld\u2019s insight into, and understanding of that Age\u2019s life has been\nsupplied us by the special interpretation offered by two or three great\nminds. In fact, every Age seems dwarfed, chaotic, full of confused\ntendencies and general contradiction till the few great men have arisen,\nand symbolised in themselves what their nation\u2019s growth or strife\n_signifies_. How many dumb ages are there in which no great writer has\nappeared, ages to whose inner life in consequence we have no key!\n\n[Illustration: One of H. R. Millar\u2019s illustrations in the English\nedition of \u201cWhat Men Live By\u201d (written in 1881), reproduced by kind\npermission of Messrs. Walter Scott, Ltd., the publishers]\n\nTolstoy\u2019s significance as the great writer of modern Russia can scarcely\nbe augmented in Russian eyes by his exceeding significance to Europe as\nsymbolising the spiritual unrest of the modern world. Yet so inevitably\n\n[Illustration:\n\nONE\nOF THE\nMOST\nSTRIKING\nOF THE\nMANY\nBUSTS OF\nCOUNT\nTOLSTOY\n]\n\nmust the main stream of each age\u2019s tendency and the main movement of the\nworld\u2019s thought be discovered for us by the great writers, whenever they\nappear, that Russia can no more keep Tolstoy\u2019s significance to herself\nthan could Germany keep Goethe\u2019s to herself. True it is that Tolstoy, as\ngreat novelist, has been absorbed in mirroring the peculiar world of\nhalf-feudal, modern\n\n[Illustration: A RECENT PORTRAIT OF COUNT TOLSTOY\n\n_From Photo by_]     [_Rek Matild, Zsolna_]\n\nRussia, a world strange to Western Europe, but the spirit of analysis\nwith which the creator of \u201cAnna Kar\u00e8nina\u201d and \u201cWar and Peace\u201d has\nconfronted the modern world is more truly representative of our Age\u2019s\noutlook than is the spirit of any other of his great contemporaries.\nBetween the days of \u201cWilhelm Meister\u201d and of \u201cResurrection\u201d what an\nextraordinary volume of the rushing tide of modern life has swept by! A\ncentury of that \u201cliberation of modern Europe from the old routine\u201d has\npassed since Goethe stood forth for \u201cthe awakening of the modern\nspirit.\u201d A century of emancipation, of Science, of unbelief, of\nincessant shock, change, and Progress all over the face of Europe, and\neven as Goethe a hundred years ago typified the triumph of the new\nintelligence of Europe over the shackles of its old institutions,\nroutine, and dogma (as Matthew Arnold affirms), so Tolstoy to-day stands\nfor the triumph of the European _soul_ against civilisation\u2019s routine\nand dogma. The peculiar modernness of Tolstoy\u2019s attitude, however, as we\nshall presently show, is that he is inspired largely by the modern\nscientific spirit in his searching analysis of modern life. Apparently\nat war with Science and Progress, his extraordinary fascination for the\nmind of Europe lies in the fact that he of all great contemporary\nwriters has come nearest to demonstrating, to _realising_ what the life\nof the modern man _is_. He of all the analysts of the civilised man\u2019s\nthoughts, emotions, and actions has least idealised, least beautified,\nand least distorted the complex daily life of the European world. With a\nmarked moral bias, driven onward in his search for truth by his\npassionate religious temperament, Tolstoy, in his pictures of life, has\nconstructed a truer _whole_, a human world less bounded by the artist\u2019s\nindividual limitations, more mysteriously living in its vast flux and\nflow than is the world of any writer of the century. \u201cWar and Peace\u201d and\n\u201cAnna Kar\u00e8nina,\u201d those great worlds where the physical environment,\nmental outlook, emotional aspiration, and moral code of the whole\ncommunity of Russia are reproduced by his art, as some mighty cunning\nphantasmagoria of changing life, are superior in the sense of containing\na whole nation\u2019s life, to the worlds of Goethe, Byron, Scott, Victor\nHugo, Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray, Maupassant, or any latter day creator\nwe can name. And not only so, but Tolstoy\u2019s analysis of life throws\nmore light on the main currents of thought in our Age, raises deeper\nproblems, and explores more untouched territories of the mind than does\nany corresponding analysis by his European contemporaries.\n\n[Illustration:\n\nTHE\nDEFENDANTS\n\n\u201cThe third prisoner\nwas Maslova\u201d\n\n(From an illustration\nby Pasternak\nin the\nEnglish Edition of\n\u201cResurrection,\u201d\nreproduced by\nkind permission of\nMr. F. R.\nHenderson)\n]\n\nIt is by Tolstoy\u2019s passionate seeking of the life of the soul that the\n\n[Illustration: TOLSTOY AND HIS DAUGHTER TATYANA]\n\ngreat Russian writer towers above the men of our day, and it is because\nhis hunger for spiritual truth has led him to probe contemporary life,\nto examine all modern formulas and appearances, to penetrate into the\nsecret thought and emotion of men of all grades in our complex society,\nthat his work is charged with the essence of nearly all that modernity\nthinks and feels, believes and suffers, hopes and fears as it evolves in\nmore and more complex forms of our terribly complex civilisation. The\nsoul of humanity is, however, always the appeal of men from the life\nthat environs, moulds, and burdens them, to instincts that go beyond and\ntranscend their present life. Tolstoy is the _appeal_ of the modern\nworld, the cry of the modern conscience against the blinded fate of its\nown _progress_. To the eye of science everything is possible in human\nlife, the sacrifice of the innocent for the sake of the progress of the\nguilty,\n\n[Illustration: COUNT TOLSTOY AND HIS FAMILY\n\n(Reproduced from _The Review of Reviews_ by kind permission of the\nEditor)] the crushing and deforming of the weak so that the strong may\ntriumph over them, the evolution of new serf classes at the dictates of\na ruling class. All this the nineteenth century has seen accomplished,\nand not seen alone in Russia. It is Tolstoy\u2019s distinction to have\ncombined in his life-work more than any other great artist two main\nconflicting points of view. He has fused by his art the science that\ndefines _the way_ Humanity is forced forward blindly and irresponsibly\nfrom century to century by the mere pressure of events, he has fused\nwith this science of our modern world the soul\u2019s protest against the\nearthly fate of man which leads the generations into taking the\nceaseless roads of evil which every age unwinds.\n\nLet us cite Tolstoy\u2019s treatment of War as an instance of how this great\nartist symbolises the Age for us and so marks the advance in\nself-consciousness of the modern mind, and as a nearer approximation to\na realisation of what life is. We have only got to compare Tolstoy\u2019s\n\u201cSebastopol\u201d (1856) with any other document on war by other European\nwriters to perceive that Tolstoy alone among artists has _realised_ war,\nhis fellows have _idealised_ it. To quote a passage from a former\narticle let us say that \u201c\u2018Sebastopol\u2019 gives us war under _all_\naspects--war as a squalid, honourable, daily affair of mud and glory, of\nvanity, disease, hard work, stupidity, patriotism, and inhuman agony.\nTolstoy gets the complex effects of \u2018Sebastopol\u2019 by keenly analysing the\neffect of the sights and sounds, dangers and pleasures, of war on the\nbrains of a variety of typical men, and by placing a special valuation\nof his own on these men\u2019s actions, thoughts, and emotions, on their\ncourage, altruism, and show of indifference in the face of death. He\nlifts up, in fact, the veil of appearances conventionally drawn by\nsociety over the actualities of the glorious trade of killing men, and\nhe does this chiefly by analysing keenly the insensitiveness and\nindifference of the average mind, which says of the worst of war\u2019s\nrealities, \u2018I felt so and so, and did so and so: but as to what those\nother thousands may have felt in their agony, that I did not enter into\nat all. \u2018Sebastopol,\u2019 therefore, though an exceedingly short and\nexceedingly simple narrative, is a psychological document on modern war\nof extraordinary value, for it simply\n\n[Illustration: LEO TOLSTOY, FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED IN 1884]\n\n[Illustration: MASLOVA\u2019S RETURN TO THE WARD AFTER THE SENTENCE\n\n\u201cShe could bear it no longer; her face quivered and she burst into sobs\u201d\n(From an illustration by Pasternak in the English Edition of\n\u201cResurrection\u201d reproduced by kind permission of Mr. F. R. Henderson)]\n\nrelegates to the lumber-room, as unlife-like and hopelessly limited, all\nthose theatrical glorifications of war which men of letters, romantic\npoets, and grave historians alike have been busily piling up on\nhumanity\u2019s shelves from generation to generation. And more: we feel that\nin \u2018Sebastopol\u2019 we have at last the sceptical modern spirit, absorbed in\nactual life, demonstrating what war is, and expressing at length the\nconfused sensations of countless men, who have heretofore never found a\ngenius who can make humanity realise what it knows half-consciously and\nconsciously evades. We cannot help, therefore, recognising this man\nTolstoy as the most advanced product of our civilisation, and likening\nhim to a great surgeon, who, not deceived by the world s presentation of\nits own life, penetrates into the essential joy and suffering, health\nand disease of multitudes of men; a surgeon who, face to face with the\nstrangest of Nature\u2019s laws in the constitution of human society,\npuzzled by all the illusions, fatuities, and conventions of the human\nmind, resolutely sets himself to lay bare the roots of all its passions,\nappetites, and incentives in the struggle for life, so that at least\nhuman reason may advance farther along the path of self-knowledge in\nadvancing towards a general sociological study of man.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: LEO TOLSTOY, 1896.\n\n(From a Photograph)]\n\nTolstoy\u2019s place in nineteenth-century literature is, therefore, in our\nview, no less fixed and certain than is Voltaire\u2019s place in the\neighteenth century. Both of these writers focus for us in a marvellously\ncomplete manner the respective methods of analysing life by which the\nrationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the science\nand humanitarianism of the nineteenth century have moulded for us the\nmodern world. All the movements, all the problems, all the speculation,\nall the agitations of the world of to-day in contrast with the immense\nmaterialistic civilisation that science has hastily built up for us in\nthree or four generations, all the _spirit_ of modern life is condensed\nin the pages of Tolstoy\u2019s writings, because, as we have said, he\ntypifies the soul of the modern man gazing, now undaunted, and now in\nalarm, at the formidable array of the newly-tabulated _cause and\neffect_ of humanity\u2019s progress, at the appalling cheapness and waste of\nhuman life in Nature\u2019s hands. Tolstoy thus stands for _the modern soul\u2019s\nalarm in contact with science_. And just as science\u2019s _work_ after its\nfirst destruction of the past ages\u2019 formalism, superstition, and dogma\nis directed more and more to the examination and amelioration of human\nlife, so Tolstoy\u2019s work has been throughout inspired by a passionate\nlove of humanity, and by his ceaseless struggle against conventional\nreligion, dogmatic science, and society\u2019s mechanical influence on the\nminds of its members. To make man more _conscious_ of his acts, to show\nsociety its real motives and what it _is_ feeling, and not cry out in\nadmiration at what it pretends to feel--this has been the great\nnovelist\u2019s aim in his delineation of Russia\u2019s life. Ever seeking the one\ntruth--to arrive at men\u2019s thoughts and sensations under the daily\npressure of life--never flinching from his exploration of the dark world\nof man\u2019s animalism and incessant self-deception, Tolstoy\u2019s _realism_ in\nart is symbolical of our absorption in the world of fact, in the modern\nstudy of natural law, a study ultimately without loss of spirituality,\nnay, resulting in immense gain to the spiritual life. The _realism_ of\nthe great Russian\u2019s novels is, therefore, more in line with the modern\ntendency and outlook than is the general tendency of other schools of\nContinental literature. And Tolstoy must be finally looked on, not\nmerely as _the conscience of the Russian world_ revolting against the\ntoo heavy burden which the Russian people have now to bear in Holy\nRussia\u2019s onward march towards the building-up of her great Asiatic\nEmpire, but also as the soul of the modern world seeking to replace in\nits love of humanity the life of those old religions which science is\ndestroying day by day. In this sense Tolstoy will stand in European\nliterature as the conscience of the modern world.\n\nEDWARD GARNETT.\n\n\n\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\n[Sidenote: =Count Tolstoy=\n\n_see Frontispiece_]\n\nLyeff Nikolaevitch Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana on August 28th\n(September 9th new style), 1828. His father, Count Nicholas Tolstoy, was\na member of the old Russian nobility. In 1813, after the siege of\nErfurt, he was taken prisoner by the French and afterwards retired from\nthe army holding the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Having assumed the\nburden of many family debts, he succeeded in paying his creditors in\nfull, thus gaining a reputation for unfailing perseverance. Tolstoy has\ndescribed his character in \u201cChildhood and Youth.\u201d \u201cHe was a man of the\nlast century,\u201d he wrote, \u201cand, like all his contemporaries, he had in\nhim something chivalrous, enterprising, self-possessed, amiable, a\npassion for pleasure.... His life was so full of all kinds of impulse\nthat he had no time to think about convictions; and besides, he had been\nso happy all his life that he did not feel it necessary to do so.\u201d His\nfather died before Tolstoy reached the age of ten years, seven years\nafter the death of his mother, of whom he wrote: \u201cWhen I try to recall\nto mind my mother as she was then, only her brown eyes arise before me,\nalways the same look of love and kindness in them. If during the most\ntrying moments of my life I could have caught a glimpse of her smile, I\nshould not have known what grief is.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: =Tolstoy in his Student days=\n\n_see page_ 2]\n\n[Sidenote: =Yasnaya Polyana=\n\n_see page_ 3]\n\nTolstoy\u2019s early years were passed in the country on the old-fashioned\nRussian estate, which resembled somewhat in patriarchal habits,\naristocratic manners, democratic familiarity, shiftlessness, and\nsuperstition, a Southern Plantation in the days of slavery. After the\ndeath of his father in 1837 the family was taken charge of by an aunt,\nthe Countess Alexandra Osten-Saken, and three years later by relatives\nof his mother who lived at Kazan. In 1843 Tolstoy entered the University\nof Kazan, where \u201cImpervious to the ambitions of scholarship and\nresearch, unimpressed by the provincial aristocracy, too nice to enjoy\nthe rough revels of the students, and repelled alike from aristocrats,\nprofessors, and students by an unsocial and what, with our English\nemphasis on government, we should call an unregulated disposition, he\nseems to have had during these two or three years a thoroughly unhappy\nand unprofitable experience.\u201d[1] Having left the University in 1846\nwithout graduating he returned to the old country home. Yasnaya Polyana\ndescended to Tolstoy from his mother. The estate, which covers an area\nof some 2,500 acres, partly arable and partly wooded, lies a hundred\nmiles due south of Moscow. It was at one time Tolstoy\u2019s intention to\ndispossess himself entirely of his property and live as a peasant.\nInstead of this, however, he has made over the whole of the land to his\nwife and children, and lives in the house nominally as a guest.\n\n[1] \u201cLeo Tolstoy,\u201d by G. H. Perris.\n\n[Sidenote: =The Gateway to Yasnaya Polyana=\n\n_see page_ 5]\n\nAt the entrance to the park are two towers, medieval in style, which\nwere erected by Tolstoy\u2019s maternal grandfather. From them the road runs\nthrough the park, rising as it approaches the house, and becomes merged\nin a level avenue of birch trees. Glimpses of a pond are caught through\nthe dense foliage and of a square smoothly rolled space used as a\ntennis-ground, the game being one in which Count Tolstoy participates\nwith great enjoyment. It will be noticed that in the photograph on page\n31 he is holding a tennis racket in his hand.\n\n[Sidenote: =The Approach to the Park=\n\n_see page_ 4]\n\n[Sidenote: =\u201cThe Tree of the Poor\u201d=\n\n_see page_ 7]\n\nThe house itself is a plain white rectangular two-storied building of\nstuccoed brick, and it would be hard to imagine a simpler and less\npretentious place than the home in which Tolstoy has spent the greater\npart of his life. It boasts neither piazzas nor towers; indeed, no\narchitectural ornaments of any kind, nor are vines or other creepers\ntrained upon the flat walls to relieve their striking whiteness or\nsoften their rectangular outlines. The house was not completed all at\nonce, but was enlarged in proportion to the needs of the family. On one\nside, devoid of windows, there is a low porch, near which stands an old\nelm tree, called \u201cThe Tree of the Poor.\u201d Close to its trunk is a bench\non which the peasants sit to await the coming of Count Tolstoy. Here he\nlistens with unwearying patience to many stories of distress and\ndifficulty, and gives in return, not only sympathy and advice, but such\nmaterial assistance as may lie at his command.\n\nIt was during the period following upon his University career that\nTolstoy threw all his energies into the task of raising both the\neconomical and moral standard of peasant life, and suffered much\ndisappointment at the hands of the peasants, who refused to allow him to\npull down their dilapidated hovels even that he might erect new and\nconvenient ones at his own cost. The result was that Tolstoy left\nYasnaya Polyana for St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1847, resolved to\nprosecute his studies with the intention of taking a degree in law. With\nthis choice of a career, however, he was dissatisfied, and returned\nagain to his estate in 1848.\n\n[Sidenote: =Tolstoy as an Officer=\n\n_see page_ 1]\n\nFor a few years he lived the ordinary life of the Russian nobleman,\nenlisting at the age of 23 as cadet in a regiment of artillery in which\nhis elder brother Nicholas was captain. Discontented with the idle life\nhe was leading and out of harmony with his gay surroundings, he decided\nto jot down his recollections of the homeland he loved so well, and it\nwas at this time that he commenced writing \u201cChildhood and Youth\u201d (which,\nhowever, was not published in its complete form until six years later)\nand \u201cThe Cossacks.\u201d\n\nSubsequently Tolstoy was appointed to a post on Prince Gortchakoff\u2019s\nstaff in Turkey, and was present at Sevastopol in 1855, having attained\nthe rank of divisional commander. His experiences during the war are\npictured in his three sketches, \u201cSevastopol in December 1854,\u201d \u201cIn May\n1855,\u201d and \u201cIn August 1855.\u201d These were published the following year and\nat once made his literary reputation. At the end of the campaign he left\nthe army and visited Western Europe, in order to study various school\nsystems, and upon his return to Yasnaya Polyana he established several\nschools of his own.\n\n[Sidenote: =Count Tolstoy and his wife=\n\n_see page_ 8]\n\nIn September 1862 Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Behrs, the daughter\nof a military doctor. He was at this time thirty-four years of age, his\nbride being sixteen years younger. Miss Behrs was not only beautiful,\nshe was an exceedingly cultured girl, having passed various examinations\nat the Moscow University. According to her brother, the manner of their\ncourtship was practically identical with that of Levin and Kitty in\n\u201cAnna Kar\u00e8nina.\u201d Countess Tolstoy at the age of forty-eight is described\nby Sergyeenko in \u201cHow Count Tolstoy Lives and Works,\u201d as having \u201cAn\nopen, expressive countenance, with vivacious, fearless eyes, which she\nconstantly brings near to the objects at which she is looking. At her\nvery first words one feels her straightforward nature. In her manner\nthere is not even a shadow of truckling to suit the tone of any one\nwhomsoever; her own individual note is always audible.\u201d\n\nAbout the time of his marriage, Tolstoy was described as \u201ca tall,\nwide-shouldered thin-waisted man, with a moustache, but without a beard,\nwith a serious, even a gloomy expression of face, which, however, was\nsoftened by a gleam of kindliness whenever he smiled.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: =Count Tolstoy at work in the fields=\n\n_see page_ 10]\n\nLiving at Yasnaya Polyana winter and summer, with but rare intervening\nvisits to Moscow, Tolstoy interested himself in all the practical\ndetails of farming. Probably his own experiences of the physical labour\nof mowing are depicted as those of Levin in \u201cAnna Kar\u00e8nina.\u201d \u201cThe work\nwent on and on. Levin absolutely lost all idea of time, and did not know\nwhether it was early or late. Though the sweat stood on his face, and\ndropped from his nose, and all his back was wet as though he had been\nplunged in water, still he felt very well. His work now seemed to him\nfull of pleasure. It was a state of unconsciousness: he did not know\nwhat he was doing, or how much he was doing, or how the hours and\nmoments were flying, but only felt that at this time his work was\ngood.\u201d\n\nTolstoy was also an enthusiastic sportsman--a diversion which occasioned\nhim two serious accidents--and, in addition to fulfilling the duties of\na Justice of the Peace, he set himself to grapple with the novel\nconditions of land-owning, a complicated and arduous task to which he\napplied himself with characteristic energy and shrewdness. Indeed, his\ninterests were manifold and exacting. Yet during this busy period he by\nno means neglected his literary work. The composition of his novel \u201cWar\nand Peace\u201d began immediately after his marriage, and extended over a\nperiod of eight years. His wife copied out the manuscript of this work\nno less than seven times as he altered and improved it. \u201cWar and Peace\u201d\nwas followed by \u201cAnna Kar\u00e8nina,\u201d which was not completed until 1876.\n\n[Sidenote: =Facsimile of a portion of Tolstoy\u2019s MS.=\n\n_see page_ 11]\n\nIn his method of working, Tolstoy may be likened to the old painters.\nHaving settled upon a plan of work, and collected a large number of\nstudies, he first makes a charcoal sketch, as it were, and writes\nrapidly without thinking of particulars. He then has a clean copy of the\nwork made by his wife or one of his daughters, and this is again\nsubjected to careful remodelling. It is still in the nature of a\ncharcoal sketch. The MS. is speedily covered with erasures and\ninterpolations. Whole sentences replace others. The work is then copied\nagain, and some chapters Tolstoy writes more than ten times. He usually\nwrites on quarto sheets of cheap plain paper in a large involved hand,\nand sometimes covers as many as twenty pages in one day. He regards the\ninterval between nine o\u2019clock and three as the best time for work.\n\n[Sidenote: =Tolstoy at work in his study at Yasnaya Polyana=\n\n_see page_ 13]\n\nHis study at Yasnaya Polyana is a small room with an uncarpeted floor, a\nvaulted ceiling, and thick stone walls. Formerly it was a store-room,\nand on the ceiling are heavy black iron rings, on which hams used to\nhang and which were used later for gymnastic exercises. The study is\nvery cool and quiet, and contains various implements of labour, such as\na scythe, a saw, pincers, tiles, etc.\n\n[Sidenote: =Tolstoy with his bicycle=\n\n_see page_ 6]\n\nAfter his morning labours, Tolstoy generally goes out, often riding on\nhorseback or on his bicycle, according to the state of the weather. He\nis strict vegetarian, eating only the simplest food and avoiding all\nstimulants. He long ago ceased to smoke. Attaching great importance to\nmanual labour, he takes a share in the housework, lighting his own fire\nand carrying water. At one time he learned bootmaking, and it is\nwonderful what an amount of physical exertion he was able to undergo at\nthe age of seventy in the way of heavy labour in the field, of riding\nscores of versts on his bicycle, or of playing for hours at lawn tennis.\n\n[Sidenote: =A portrait of Tolstoy=\n\n_see page_ 16]\n\n[Sidenote: =Tolstoy in the grounds of Yasnaya Polyana=\n\n_see page_ 24]\n\nTolstoy has always dressed extremely simply, and when at home his\ncostume consisted of a grey flannel blouse, which in summer he exchanged\nfor a canvas one of a very original cut, as may be judged from the fact\nthat there was in the whole district only one old woman who could make\nit according to his orders. In this blouse Tolstoy sat for his portrait\nto Kramsky and R\u00e9pin, the painters. His over-dress was composed of a\ncaftan and half-shouba, made of the simplest materials, and, like the\nblouse, eccentric in their cut, being made evidently not for show but to\nstand bad weather. The Hon. Ernest Howard Crosby has given an\ninteresting description of Count Tolstoy\u2019s appearance. \u201cHe is dressed\nlike a peasant in a grey-white blouse of thin, coarse, canvas-like\nmaterial, with a leather belt; but his toilet differs from a peasant\u2019s\nin being scrupulously clean. His features are irregular and plain, and\nyet his figure is so strong and massive that the _tout ensemble_ is\nstriking and fine-looking. His little blue eyes peer out from under his\nbushy eyebrows with the kindliest of expressions.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: =Count Tolstoy and his family=\n\n_see page_ 31]\n\nCount and Countess Tolstoy have had fifteen children of whom only seven\nsurvived. The system of their upbringing has been fully dealt with by M.\nC. A. Behrs in his \u201cRecollections of Count Leo Tolstoy.\u201d Toys and\nplaythings were rigorously banished from the nursery. With the first\nchild the trial was made to dispense altogether with a nurse. But later\nit was thought well to yield to the requirements of their social\nposition and to the habits of contemporary life, and the children were\nput under the care of nurses, bonnes, and governesses. The parents,\nhowever, exercised a strict and unremittent surveillance over both the\nchildren and those who had the care of them.\n\nThe greatest possible liberty was allowed to the children, and all put\nin authority over them were strictly forbidden to have resort under any\npretext to violent or severe punishments.\n\nTolstoy believed that these principles were nowhere so generally\naccepted as in England, and, accordingly, from their third to their\nninth year, the children were placed under the charge of young English\ngovernesses engaged directly from London.\n\n[Sidenote: =Count Tolstoy, his wife, and daughters=\n\n_see page_ 12]\n\nCountess Tolstoy is an excellent housewife, attentive and hospitable.\nAll the complicated and troublesome management of the housekeeping and\ndirection of household affairs is under her charge. She is\nindefatigable, and brings her brisk energy, thriftiness, and activity to\nbear in every direction, and this she does without help. Her three\neldest sons live apart, each occupied with his own business matters. Her\ndaughters have their own interests and duties, which take up the greater\npart of their time.\n\n[Sidenote: =Tolstoy and his eldest daughter Tatyana=\n\n_see page_ 30]\n\nTolstoy\u2019s eldest daughter, Tatyana Lvovna, a girl of exceptional talent,\nin particular works very hard. In addition to copying much of her\nfather\u2019s manuscript, she conducts his vast correspondence, consisting of\nan almost incredible number of letters received in all languages from\nevery part of the globe.\n\n[Sidenote: =Leo Tolstoy, from a portrait painted in 1884=\n\n_see page_ 33]\n\n[Sidenote: =Illustrations by H. R. Millar to \u201cWhat Men Live By\u201d--=\n\n_see page_ 25]\n\nThis is probably the most striking of all the portraits of Count\nTolstoy, representing him when at the height of his popularity and\npower. In 1884 he was at work on the Popular Tales and Sketches which\nsold by millions throughout Russia, and from which we reproduce two or\nthree illustrations--viz., one by H. R. Millar from the English edition\nof \u201cWhat Men Live By,\u201d written in 1881; another by the same artist from\nthe English edition of \u201cWhere Love is there God is also,\u201d and a third\nshowing the cover of this tract, which was written in 1885, and issued\nin rough pamphlet form at the price of a few farthings.\n\n[Sidenote: =--and to \u201cWhere Love is there God is also\u201d=\n\n_see page_ 15]\n\n[Sidenote: =Cover of \u201cWhere Love is there God is also\u201d=\n\n_see page_ 20]\n\n[Sidenote: =Pasternak\u2019s illustrations to \u201cResurrection\u201d=\n\n_see pages_ 19, 29 and 34]\n\nDuring the last twenty years Tolstoy has written the following\nbooks:--\u201cMy Confession,\u201d \u201cA Criticism of Dogmatic Theology,\u201d which has\nnever been translated, \u201cThe Four Gospels, Harmonized and Translated,\u201d\n\u201cWhat I Believe,\u201d \u201cThe Gospel in Brief,\u201d \u201cWhat to Do,\u201d \u201cOn Life\u201d (also\ncalled \u201cLife\u201d), \u201cThe Kreutzer Sonata,\u201d \u201cThe Kingdom of God is Within\nYou,\u201d \u201cThe Christian Teaching,\u201d \u201cWhat is Art?\u201d which in Tolstoy\u2019s own\nopinion is the best constructed of his books, \u201cResurrection,\u201d his last\nnovel, begun about 1894, and then laid aside in favour of what seemed\nmore important work to be completely rewritten and published in 1899 for\nthe benefit of the Doukhabors, and latterly \u201cWhat is Religion and what\nis Its Essence,\u201d published in February 1902. The illustrations\nreproduced from \u201cResurrection\u201d on pages 19, 29, and 34 are from the\nremarkable drawings by Pasternak. Concerning these pictures there is an\ninteresting note in the preface of the French edition of the novel from\nwhich it may be gathered that the drawings tallied very closely with\nTolstoy\u2019s own conception of the appearance of his characters. It was the\nartist\u2019s usual custom to submit each design on its completion to the\neminent novelist for his opinion. Invariably Tolstoy showed his approval\nof the clever realisation of his ideas. But when it came to the sketch\nof Prince Nekhludov, Tolstoy went so far as to enquire of M. Pasternak\nwhether he was acquainted with the person who had served him as a model.\nAt this the artist showed extreme surprise--he had not even been aware\nthat the character was copied from an original.","title":"Leo Tolstoy","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":9896}