on the other he is a fanatic. The present generation knows him best as a preacher of impossible dogmas, as a pietist who deems renunciation the first and last duty of man, and who looks with a kind of guilty regret upon the brilliant works of earlier years. It is unlikely that his gospel will ever be more than the sport of cranks and interviewers. The excellence of manual labour, a favourite article of his faith, is disputed by no one, while his communism has been tried and has failed too often to be of interest or importance. But the very simplicity of his fanaticism would be engaging, if it had not been made common by the newspapers; for Count Tolstoi is that rarest of creatures— a fanatic who has lived. If he believes to-day that a primitive life is best for us all, he has arrived at that belief by proving to his own satisfaction that most other lives are unsatisfying. He is a noble, he has great estates, he has served in a distinguished regiment; yet he now sees no beauty save in the life of the peasants who till the soil, who sow the grain, and who reap the harvest. But his fanaticism will pass and be forgotten with other systems of the same kind; his masterpieces of fiction will guard their niche in the temple of fame for all time.

His inde

schools.

To attach him to this school or that would be an impertinence, since, indeed, he seems to have fashioned his own method. For such mechanical contrivances as the novelists call plot or conpendence of struction you will look in vain in his pages. He is not a professed psychologist, though he pierces deeper than most into human character. He makes no claim to realism, though he is always closer to the truth than the rhapsodical M. Zola. But he exhibits the characters of his personages as much in deed as in thought he does not analyse their motives as does Turgenev; he prefers that their qualities, either good or evil, should be displayed in action. For this reason

he packs his canvas full of figures. He attains his effects by a mass of details introduced into a vast space. Some of them, at a first reading, may seem superfluous; but there are few which do not add a new touch to the portrait, or show a character in a new light before his friends or foes. And it is this method which creates the impression of realism. In reading such works as 'Anna Karenin' or 'Peace and War' you seem to be confronted not by fiction but by life. There are no jerky "curtains" to disturb the illusion; the chapters do not end upon a note of interrogation, designed to force the interest on to another page. The plot develops itself as does life, simply, inevitably, and without accent; and in accord with this simplicity the characters are rarely either above or below the stature of men. That is to say, Tolstoi deals neither with giants nor pigmies. His characters are not grotesquely sombre, like Dostoievsky's; nor grotesquely humorous, like the characters of Dickens. They are, indeed, merely the men and women that he has encountered in his career-nobles and peasants, statesmen, sportsmen, and soldiers. And here we may note the result of an aristocratic prejudice: for him the vast middle class does not exist. Even the lawyer in 'Anna Karenin' is not treated quite seriously; when he is not enunciating foolish platitudes in a pompous style, he is catching moths to save his rep curtains. With this limitation Tolstoi knows the world of Russia intimately, and he pictures it with a philosophic calm and impartiality which should belong to the His impartiality perfect realist. But, the critic may object, his books have no construction. Nor has Life; and though you might leave out half of 'Peace and War,' or 'Anna Karenin,' without destroying its meaning, there is still more in Life, at whose significance we cannot guess. Again objects the critic, the artist should select no more than is useful to his purpose. But Tolstoi only differs from other novelists in that he selects

U

with a more generous hand. He is no symbolist attempting to represent the world in a blade of grass; rather he sets Life impartially before you, and leaves you to draw your own conclusions.

But there is one limit even to Tolstoi's impartiality. Though he holds the scales of justice with an even hand, though he looks with hatred upon none of and its limits. his personages, though even Karenin in his eyes (and in ours) is redeemed from contempt, he is still partial where he himself is concerned. In other words, he cannot keep himself out of his books, and in some subtle fashion lets you know when fiction turns to autobiography. There is little doubt that in the vacillant, magnanimous, simple-hearted Levin he is drawing his own character, not with any slavish accuracy in fact, but with a perfect fidelity to thought. The actions of Levin may not have been Tolstoi's; the opinions of the two men (one is sure) are always identical. So, too, we detect the author in the valiant Peter, a hero in the heroic 'Peace and War.' But while these resemblances are intuitive, as it were, the student may judge how much Tolstoi borrowed from his own experience, if he will study his 'Memoirs,' and compare their incidents with the incidents of his two great romances.

To give an impression of his gallery would be impossible, but surely no artist ever boasted so noble an array of portraits. Prince Andry is the noblest gentleman known to fiction, and though none save the greatest can draw a gentleman, it is not only by this supreme test that Tolstoi excels: he has depicted gamblers and men about town with a clairvoyant sympathy which comes of experience alone. His Cossacks are living heroes; and Turgenev, with all his sympathy with young Russia, never saw so deep into the peasant's mind as Tolstoi. He has unfolded war with all its accessories of splendour, courage, and passion in a grandiose panorama. In 'Ivan Iliitch' he has softened by his art the common,

hopeless horror of death; and he has done all this with so deep a knowledge of human nature, with so fine a sympathy with human weakness, that he can rank only with the great ones of the earth. Such is Tolstoi the artist, and as for Tolstoi the fanatic, we may leave him to other fanatics, who, not having his genius, are proud to ape his folly. But all the fanaticism in the world cannot recall or abolish a published masterpiece, and not even the indecent folly of the 'Kreutzer Sonata' can dim the brilliancy of 'Peace and War.'

DECEMBER.

THE last two years have been, for England, years of poignant and recurrent emotion. It is not our habit to wear our hearts upon our sleeves; we are not Two years wont to parade our feelings in the eye of the of emotion. world. The episodes which the hasty pro-Boer is wont to call "reverses" have left us impassive; and the French reporter who was hustled over to London in the early days of the war, that he might describe a state of hare-brained panic, was disappointed both of copy and applause. But we have risen enthusiastically to every great occasion, and shown that we also can appreciate justified and appropriate display. Procession has followed procession with frequent solemnity; grief and joy have both been publicly recognised and expressed; and we guard a memory not only of pride and sorrow, but of the pageantry which symbolised these high emotions.

A peaceful triumph.

And now another note is struck, a note of peaceful triumph. London has thronged the streets once again, this time to welcome the Duke of York on his return from an adventurous journey. The journey was devised by Queen Victoria, that the bonds which bind our colonies to the mother country might be strengthened, and this purpose has been worthily achieved. Not that there are any broken links in the chain of affection which holds our great empire, for never in our history has a common danger bound sentiment and interest more closely together. Our empire, if it was not won by the sword, has been guarded