“That is why he is the common glory of schools, between which so many disagreements exist. This great race, divided because it is great, finds in him its unity. Hostile brethren separated by different ways of interpreting the ideal, come all of you to his tomb. All of you have the right to love him; for he belonged to all of you, he held you all in his heart. Admirable privilege of genius! The repellent sides of things do not exist for him. In him all finds reconciliation. Parties most opposed unite to praise him and admire. In the region whither he carries us, words which stir irritation in the vulgar lose their sting. Genius accomplishes in a day what it takes centuries to do. It creates an atmosphere of higher peace when those who were foes find that in reality they have been co-laborers; it opens the era of the grand amnesty when those who have been battling in the arena of progress sleep side by side and hand in hand.
“Above the race, in fact, stands humanity; or, if you prefer, reason. Turgénief was of a race by his manner of feeling and painting. He belonged to all humanity by his lofty philosophy, facing with calm eyes the conditions of human existence, and seeking without prejudice to know the reality. This philosophy brought him sweetness, joy in life, pity for creatures, for victims above all. Ardently he loved this poor humanity, often blind, in sooth, but so often betrayed by its leaders. He applauded its spontaneous effort towards well being and truth. He did not reprove its illusions; he was not angry because it complained. The iron policy which mocked at those who suffer was not for him. No disappointment arrested him. Like the universe, he would have begun a thousand times the ruined work: he knew that justice can wait; the end will always be success. He had truly the words of eternal life, the words of peace, of justice, of love, and of liberty.”
COUNT LYOF N. TOLSTOÏ.
Count Tolstoï traces his ancestry back to Count Piotr Andreyévitch Tolstoï, a friend and companion of Peter the Great. In all probability the unnamed atavus who lurks in the patronymic Andreyévitch was merely distinguished by his size,—Andrew the Stout. Many Russian family names, just as is the case with our own English appellations, are derived from characteristics or resemblances. The great Speransky was a hopeful foundling; Soloviéf recalls our nightingales; Pobyedonovtsof means “of the victorious;” the name of Katkof may refer to the proverbial rolling stone; Gogol is a species of duck called the golden eye; the report of cannon may be heard in Pushkin’s name; the ancestor of Griboyédof was probably an eater of mushrooms.
Tolstoï’s father was a retired lieutenant-colonel, who died in 1839. His mother, the Princess Marya Nikolayevna Volkonskaïa, died when Count Lyof was only two years old, and he was brought up by a distant relative, Mme. Yergolskaïa. At Yasnaïa Polyana his education was desultory. In 1840 the five children were taken in charge by a relative of their mother, Pelagia Ilinishna Yushkovaïa, who lived at Kazan. It was thus that Lyof Tolstoï happened to enter the university of that city in 1843. After a few years of study, he suddenly determined to leave the university without graduation. The rektor and the professors argued with him, but in vain; and he went back to his ancestral estate, where he lived till 1851, very rarely visiting the capital. A visit from his beloved brother Nikolaï, who was an officer in the army of the Caucasus, inspired him to see “cities of men and manners, climates, councils,” though least of all the cities of men. Especially strong was his desire to be with his brother in the Kavkaz, where Russia’s greatest poets had won their proudest laurels. The impressions made on him by the splendid scenery of the ‘white mountains,’ and by the rough, half-savage life, were so strong that in 1851 he entered the service, like Olénin, as a yunker, or ensign-bearer in the Fourth Battery of the Twentieth Artillery, the same in which his brother was an officer.
Here in the Caucasus Count Tolstoï first began to write fiction. He planned to weave his recollections of family life and old traditions into a great novel. Fragments of this work were written and afterwards published in the “Sovremennik.” “Infancy” (Dyetstvo) came out in 1852. “Adolescence” (Otrotchestvo) was also written then, and several of his brilliant sketches of wild life,—“The Invasion,” “The Felling of the Forest,” and, as has been said, “The Cossacks.” “The Cossacks” is translated into English by Mr. Eugene Schuyler. A very little polishing would make it a brilliant piece of literary work: in its present form it is crude and rough.
Count Tolstoï lived two years in the Caucasus, taking part in various guerilla expeditions, and enduring in common with the soldiers all the hardships of frontier warfare. Here on the spot he made his powerful and life-like studies of the Russian soldier, which are seen in his “War Sketches” (Voyennuié Razskazui). At the breaking out of the Crimean War, Count Tolstoï was transferred to the army of the Danube, and served on Prince M. D. Gortchakof’s staff. At Sevastópol, whither he went after the Russian army was driven from the principalities, he was attached to the artillery. His literary work had attracted attention in high quarters, and orders were sent to the front to see that he was not exposed to danger. In May, 1855, he was appointed division commander: he took part in the battle of the Tchernaïa, was in the celebrated storming of Sevastópol, and after the battle was sent as special courier to Petersburg. At the end of the campaign Count Tolstoï retired, and the next winter he spent at Moscow and Petersburg. This was a period of great literary activity. Besides his stories, “Sevastópol in December,” and “Sevastópol in May,” there appeared in the magazines “Youth” (Yunost), “Sevastópol in August,” “Two Hussars” (Dva Gusári), and “Three Deaths” (Tri Smerti).
After the liberation of the serfs, Count Tolstoï, like many conscientious Russian proprietors, felt it his duty to live on his estate. He was profoundly interested in agronomic questions, and in the application to the Slavic commune of Occidental methods, which he studied abroad for himself. He was still more interested in popular education; and a school journal, called “Yasnaïa Polyana,” which he established, discussed all pedagogical questions. He also published a series of primers, readers, spellers, in paper covers and large type. It was about this time that a Russian journalist met Count Tolstoï; and his account of the interview is interesting, as showing the novelist’s views a quarter of a century ago. He says,—
“In 1862 I became acquainted with him in Moscow. I saw before me a tall, wide-shouldered, thin-waisted man, about thirty-five years old, with a mustache, but without a beard, with a serious, even gloomy expression of face, which, however, was softened by a gleam of kindliness whenever he laughed. Our conversation turned on the occurrences which at that time were exciting Russian life. Count Tolstoï immediately showed that he lived outside of this life, that the interests of the class which regards itself as cultured were foreign to him. He seemed to be opposed to progress, which, in his opinion, was only advantageous for the smaller portion of society, having plenty of time to spend, and which was absolutely injurious for the majority, for the people; and for them it was just as disadvantageous as it was profitable for the minority.... Those present argued angrily with him: he himself sometimes was drawn away, sometimes he spoke ironically. I listened more than I spoke. At the time when all were infatuated with progress, such original boldness of thought was remarkable; and I felt an involuntary sympathy for this Rousseau, who began to contrast the products of nature with the products of civilization,—forests, wild creatures, rivers, physical development, purity of morals, and other such things. It seemed that this man was living the life of the peasantry, sharing their views, that he was devoted to the welfare of the people with all the strength of his soul, though he understood the people in different way from others. The proof was his school,—those maltchiks, of whom he spoke with evident love, praising their talents, their powers of comprehension, their artistic sense, their moral virginity, which was so far from being the case with children of other nationalities.”
The latter years of Count Tolstoï’s life, since the publication of “War and Peace” and “Anna Karénina,” are somewhat wrapped in mystery. Various wild stories, founded on the evident bias of “My Confession” and “My Religion,” have assumed almost the proportions of myth. It may be that at the present day, that we of the calm, rational, sceptical, Western world are granted the privilege of seeing the actual evolution of a myth, as a boy may see a chrysalis unfold.