Leo Tolstoi

“ I suspect myself that Tolstoi's real quarrel with Peter was due to the fact that the great Tsar was an unanswerable confutation of the novelist's pet theory of the uselessness of independent individuality, for if ever a man was superior to his age and his environment, and moulded them both to his will, it was Peter the Great. And yet there is a moral grandeur in Tolstoi's refusal to admire the exploits of the great national regenerator who owed so much of his success to the unflinching application of mere brute force. ”

“ The happiness of a well-assorted match and a tranquil family life drew him quite away from all seeking after a general theory of life, and, as Tolstoi himself characteristically puts it, "although I considered all writing to be rubbish, I went on writing, nevertheless, for I had tasted of the seduction of writing, the seduction of the enormous literary renown of work which was really worthless." ”

“ The beauty and variety of the Caucasian scenery, where, in a few hours, one passes from the realm of eagles and snow-storms to emerald-green valleys where the dense oak forests are thick with azaleas and laurels, where myrtles and cypresses grow in the open air, and mountain ranges, dominated by the snowy caps of Elbrus and Kazbek, form an impressive background, powerfully affected young Tolstoi. ”

“ Next he applied to Philosophy, but Philosophy could but tell him that the only way out of life was through death. Finally, he arrived at the conclusion that Faith was the one mainstay of life — but where was Faith to be found? To acquire knowledge is easy, but to acquire faith when you have none within you seemed well-nigh impossible. In this dilemma Tolstoi began by consorting with monks and pilgrims, by frequenting the Optinsky monastery, by shutting himself in his own room for private prayer, studying the Scriptures, and consulting Catholics, Protestants, and Raskolniks indiscriminately. ”

“ The character of Napoleon is of itself a revelation. A great critic has well said that after reading the description of Alexander's interview with Bonaparte at Tilsit, one cannot rid oneself of the conviction that Tolstoi must have been concealed somewhere in the same room, for nowhere else do we seem to see "the little corporal" so vividly in the flesh as in the pages of "Voina i Mir." The philosophy of the book, as already hinted, is not without a tinge of Schopenhauerism. Thus, man's reason, coupled with his exacting egoism, is held to be the source of all human suffering. ”

“ Even religion is discarded, because, as Tolstoi plainly perceived, religion strengthens the sense of individuality by making man self-conscious. This after all is "Die Welt in Wille und Vorstellung" in a nutshell. No wonder, then, if Tolstoi's great contemporary, Dostoevsky, after reading "Voina i Mir," put the book down with the simple remark: "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." Yet Tolstoi himself at a later day was to reject Schopenhauer's philosophy as inadequate. Tolstoi himself, at least, while actually engaged upon the work, was not a little proud of "Voina i Mir." ”

“ Science and Philosophy tell us that we must go on living as we are, in the firm belief that, according to the law of historical progress, after living for a long time badly, our life will right itself and suddenly become good of its own accord." We all know how the crisis ended. We all know how Tolstoi found peace at last by resolutely devoting his whole life to labouring for the people in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. ”

“ Some indefinable power drove me towards the idea of ridding myself of life somehow or other. Indeed, the thought of suicide became so attractive that I had to use artifice against it so as not immediately to put it into execution. ”

“ During the terrible winter of 1891-92, when whole provinces of the Russian Empire presented the terrible and pathetic spectacle of an entire agricultural population, overwhelmed by snow, dying in thousands, without a word of complaint, though absolutely deprived of food, clothes, or firewood, Tolstoi hastened to the afflicted districts, and fed thousands, daily at his own expense at improvised ordinaries, never quitting his post for a single instant till all danger was at an end. ”

“ From henceforth the shadow of death falls across his finest pages, and he is possessed by a constantly deepening feeling of the futility of life and the emptiness of the best that it can offer. Even art lost its charm for him." Art is a lie, and I cannot love a lie however beautiful," is his summing up of the whole matter. It was in this morbidly gloomy frame of mind that he wrote "Lucerne" and "Albert," surely the most pessimistic productions of modern fiction.
Tolstoi's second Continental tour was a voyage of instruction. ”

“ One of her favourite maxims was, nothing licks a young man into shape so much as a carefully contrived liaison with a woman comme il faut. Nor were matters made much better when, in the early forties, young Tolstoi went to Kazan to complete his education. It was usual in those days for the Russian youths to go direct from their homes, where the teaching they got was, at best, very imperfect and perfunctory, instead of, as now, using the Gymnasium as a stepping-stone to the University. ”

“ Twelve months later Tolstoi went abroad again, but between his first and second foreign tour occurred what he always regarded as the tragedy of his life — the death of his elder brother Nicholas, to whom he was devotedly attached, and who is said to have been the one really intimate friend, except his wife, he ever possessed. Turgenev describes the elder Tolstoi as "a talented talker and story-teller, who always lived by himself either in the country or in quite impossible quarters at Moscow, sharing everything with the poor." ”

“ He never would believe in the regenerating influence of mere culture. This was the secret of his quarrel with his great contemporary, Turgenev, whose cosmopolitanism, Anglomania, and "gentlemanly way of regarding literature and progress generally," absolutely revolted him. The Russian author, Fet', who met Tolstoi one evening at Nekrasov's, observed in him, at the very first instant, "an involuntary opposition to everything generally accepted in the department of criticism." ”

“ At such moments I can well understand a youth lighting a fire beneath the very house where his parents, his brothers and sisters, whom he tenderly loves are sleeping, aye, and doing it without the least fear or hesitation and even with a smile upon his face. ”

“ He could quite understand, he tells us, the commission of the greatest crimes, not from any desire to injure but from sheer curiosity to see what would happen, from the sheer necessity of doing something. "There are moments," he says, "when the future presents itself to our mind's eye in such dark colours that we fear to face it with the eye of reason, and try to persuade ourselves that there will be no Future and that there has been no Past. ”

“ With the possible exception of Turgenev's "Otsui i Dyeti" ("Fathers and Sons") five years earlier, no other Russian book ever created such a sensation. Despite its obvious defects (defects far less discernible, however, in the original than the translations be they never so good) , prolixity, an almost total absence of humour and a disposition to philosophize à la Schopenhauer, under whose fascination Tolstoi lay at that particular time, [4] "Voina i Mir" must ever rank amongst the few supremely great masterpieces of the world's literature. ”

“ The main duty of man is self-renunciation and absolute subjection to the will of the mass of humanity which makes up the nation. Kutuzov was a great man simply because he understood this, and had no independent will of his own. Such a system necessarily postulates the non-existence of separate human individuality, and, logically pursued, would make unconscious instinct the best, because the strongest force in nature. ”

“ If Tolstoi's mother had some of the characteristics of a saint, as much cannot be said of his aunt and guardian, Polina Yushkovaya. She appears, from all accounts, to have been a good-natured, worldly minded woman, very proud of her great connexions, and considering wealth and position as the sole means to happiness. ”

“ The higher classes, all more or less closely connected, gloried in a large patriarchal hospitality. A young bachelor student of good family in those days need never keep his own table. Twenty or thirty houses were open to him daily without special invitation, he had only to pick and choose. A student, when once in the full swing of the thing, could rarely get to bed till five o'clock in the morning, and rarely rose till after twelve o'clock at noon. Tolstoi, in the character of "Nikolinka Irtenev," has given us a vivid piece of self-portraiture as he was at Kazan. ”

“ First he turned to Science, only to receive an interminable quantity of dark answers to questions he had never asked, but as to the meaning of life he did not receive, and of course could not receive any answer, for Science does not and cannot occupy herself with such a question. ”

“ Pupils were at first attracted by its novelty, but decamped the moment they felt they had learnt enough, and the attempt to found fourteen establishments of the same sort in other places failed for want of public support, whereupon Tolstoi abandoned the scheme altogether, and buried himself in the steppes inhabited by the nomadic Bashkirs, in order to "breathe fresh air, drink kumiss, and live the healthy, natural life of the brute beasts." To this residence among the Bashkirs we are indebted for that piercingly vivid story: "How much land does a man want?" ”

“ In 1876 he wrote to a friend, "I continue under the delusion that what I am writing is very important, although I know that within a month the remembrance of it will be on my conscience. Sometimes I feel myself to be as a God from whom nothing is concealed, and at other times I am as stupid as a brute beast." ”

“ In the winter he generally resides at Moscow, frequenting, by preference, charitable institutions and working men's concerts, despite his seventy years taking the liveliest interest in every question of the day, especially those relating to religion and morality, and delighting everyone by the alertness of his intelligence and the generous breadth of his sympathy. ”

“ He had always been of the opinion that "the only really honest labour worthy of a man was manual labour," and from henceforth he adopted the life of a common peasant, and worked vigorously alongside his labourers in his own fields. ”

“ There can also be little doubt that the rude but salutary lessons of active warfare, teaching as it does to those who will learn the lesson, the urgent necessity of complete self-restraint and self-surrender, had a purifying, ennobling influence on Tolstoi's character. ”

“ Princely students kept whole streets in a state of siege for weeks together by incessantly discharging air-guns from their garret-windows at all passers-by, and most of the aristocratic students formed exclusive little coteries among themselves which were so engrossed with really important matters like balls, picnics, dramatic entertainments, and very often less reputable forms of amusement, that they had very little time left for mere study. ”

“ On another occasion, however, he admits, without reserve, that he is perfectly happy in his married life. He has discovered that Fanny is not only a loving wife but an excellent mother, and a helper even in his literary work. ”

“ My wife regularly looks after the cash and the accounts, and I have the bees, the sheep, a new garden, and the vines on my hands. Everything goes on pretty well, though of course it is not ideally perfect. ”

“ Shortly before the father's death, the whole family, consisting of four boys and one little girl, removed to Moscow in order that the eldest son, Nicholas, might prepare for the University, but the sudden death of Count Tolstoi, almost immediately afterwards, left the family in such straitened circumstances that they were obliged to return at once to Yasnaya Polyana, where the children were taught German by a German governess and Russian language and literature by a poor native seminarist. ”

“ A morbid sensitiveness, a pitiful lack of moral and mental equilibrium, a consuming pride, and a disgust at his own privileged position which points to a latent reserve of nobility, is legible in every line of this description. ”

“ Twenty years previously he had been tormented by similar doubts, and, after much torturing self-analysis, had come to the conclusion that his writings were of no use to the people at large (in his mind the sole true test of their utility) , and simply the product of egoism and self-glorification. "It is plain to me," he wrote in i86l, "that the compiling of magazines and books, the immense and ceaseless process of printing and publishing may be profitable enough for authors, printers, and publishers, but bring no benefit to the people, and therefore stands self-condemned." ”