empowered them to grant us the greatest of blessings, peace and friendship, while they themselves receive the same. If these take place, you will be acknowledged to be the principal cause of them: if they do not, you alone must expect to bear the blame from both nations. And though the chance of war is uncertain, yet it will be the certain event of this, that if you conquer, you will be a destroying demon to your country: if you are beaten, it will be clear that, by indulging your resentment, you have plunged your friends and benefactors in the greatest of misfortunes."

Coriolanus listened to his mother while she went on with her speech, without saying the least word to her: and Volumnia, seeing him stand a long time mute after she had left speaking, proceeded again in this manner: "Why are you silent, my son? Is it an honor to yield everything to anger and resentment, and would it be a disgrace to yield to your mother in so important a petition? Or does it become a great man to remember the injuries done him, and would it not equally become a great and good man, with the highest regard and reverence, to keep in mind the benefits he has received from his parents? Surely you of all men, should take care to be grateful, who have suffered so extremely by ingratitude. And yet, though you have already severely punished your country, you have not made your mother the least return for her kindness. The most sacred ties both of nature and religion, without other constraint, require that you should indulge me in this just and reasonable request: but if words

cannot prevail, this only resource is left." When she had said this, she threw herself at his feet, together with his wife and children: upon which Coriolanus crying out, "O mother! what is it you have done?" raised her from the ground, and tenderly pressing her hand, continued, "You have gained a victory fortunate for your country, but ruinous to me. I go, vanquished by you alone." Then, after a short conference with his mother and wife in private, he sent them back to Rome, agreeably to their desire. Next morning he drew off the Volscians, who had not all the same sentiments of what had passed. Some blamed him, others, whose inclinations were for peace, found no fault: others again, though they disliked what was done, did not look upon Coriolanus as a bad man, but thought he was excusable in yielding to such powerful solicitations. However, none presumed to contradict his orders, though they followed him rather out of veneration for his virtue, than regard to his authority.

MY IDEA OF MY MOTHER

BY COUNT TOLSTOY

"My mother I do not at all remember. I was a year and a half old when she died. Owing to some strange chance no portrait of her has been preserved, so that, as a real physical being, I cannot represent her to myself. I am in a sense glad of this, for in my conception of her there is only her spiritual figure, and all that I know about her is beautiful, and I think

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this is so, not only because all who spoke to me of my mother tried to say only what was good, but because there was actually very much of this good in her.

"My mother was not handsome. She was well educated for her time. Besides Russian, which, contrary to the national illiterateness then current, she wrote correctly, she knew four other languages, French, German, English, and Italian, and was probably sensitive to art. She played well on the piano, and her friends have told me that she was a great hand at narrating most attractive tales invented at the moment. . .

"I have preserved several of her letters to my father and aunts, and her diary concerning the conduct of Nikolenka (my eldest brother) who was six years old when she died, and I think resembled her more than the rest of us. They both possessed a feature very dear to me, which I infer from my mother's letters, but personally witnessed in my brother: their indifference to the opinion of others, and their modesty in their endeavors to conceal those mental, educational, and moral advantages which they had in comparison with others. They were, as it were, ashamed of these advantages.

"I remark the same feature in my mother's letters. She evidently stood on a higher level than my father and his family, with the exception, perhaps, of Tatiana Yergolsky, with whom I passed half my life, and who was a woman remarkable for her moral qualities.

"Besides this, they both had yet another feature which I believe contributed to their indifference to the judgment of men it was that they never con

demned any one.

"A feature which distinguishes my mother among her circle was her truthfulness and the simple tone of her letters. At that time the expression of exaggerated feelings was especially cultivated in letters: Incomparable, divine, the joy of my life, unutterably precious,' etc., were the most usual epithets between friends, and the more inflated the less sincere. "I have been told that my mother loved me very much, and called me 'Mon petit Benjamin'. .

". . . The fourth strong feeling which did perhaps exist, as my aunts told me - I earnestly hope that it did exist was her love for me, which took the place of her love for Koko, who at the time of my birth had already detached himself from his mother and been transferred into male hands. It was a necessity for her to love what was not herself, and one love took the place of another.

"Such was the figure of my mother in my imagination. She appeared to me a creature so elevated, pure, and spiritual that often in the middle period of my life, during my struggle with overwhelming temptations, I prayed to her soul, begging her to aid me, and this prayer always helped me much.

"My mother's life in her father's family was a very good and happy one, as I may conclude from letters and stories.

"My father's household consisted of his mother,

an old lady; of her daughter, my aunt Countess Alexandra Osten-Saken, and her ward Pashenka; of another aunt, as we used to call her, although she was a very distant relative, Tatiana Yergolsky, who had been educated in my grandfather's house and had passed all her later life in my father's; and the tutor, Feodor Ivanovich Resselier. We were five children Nicolay, Sergey, Dmitri, myself, the youngest boy, and our younger sister Mashenka, at whose birth my mother died. My mother's very short married life

-I think it lasted not more than nine years was very full, and adorned by every one's love to her and hers to every one who lived with her. Judging by the letters, I see that she lived at that time in great solitude. Scarcely anyone visited Yasnaya Polmana except our intimate friends the Ogarefs and some relatives who, if casually traveling along the high-road, might look in upon them.

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My mother's life was passed in occupations with the children, in reading aloud of an evening to my grandmother, and in serious readings such as Emile, by Rousseau and discussions about what had been read; in playing the piano, teaching Italian to one of my aunts, walks, and household work. In all families there are periods when illness and death are yet unknown, and the members live peacefully. Such a period, it seems to me, my mother was living through in her husband's family until her death. No one died, no one was seriously ill, my father's disordered affairs were improving. All were healthy, happy, and friendly. My father amused every one with his stor