Not only do the early novels indicate the direction that Tolstoi's whole life was bound to assume, but his diary and letters show the same thing. The extracts from these that I have given above are substantial proof of this--he saw the truth just as clearly in 1855 as he saw it in 1885, or in 1905. The difference between the early and later Tolstoi is not, then, a difference in mental viewpoint, it is a difference in conduct and action.* The eternal moral law of self-sacrifice was revealed to him in letters of fire when he wrote The Cossacks and Sevastopol; everything that he wrote after was a mere amplification and additional emphasis. But he was young then; and although he saw the light, he preferred the darkness. He knew then, just as clearly as he knew later, that the life in accordance with New Testament teaching was a better life than that spent in following his animal instincts; but his knowledge did not save him.
* For a very unfavourable view of Tolstoi's later conduct, the "Tolstoi legend," see Merezhkovski, Tolstoi as Man and Artist.
Even the revolutionary views on art, which he expressed toward the end of the century in his book, What is Art? were by no means a sudden discovery, nor do they reveal a change in his attitude. The accomplished translator, Mr. Maude, said in his preface, "The fundamental thought expressed in this book leads inevitably to conclusions so new, so unexpected, and so contrary to what is usually maintained in literary and artistic circles," etc. But while the conclusions seemed new (and absurd) to many artists, they were not at all new to Tolstoi. So early as 1872 he practically held these views. In a letter to Strakov, expressing his contempt for modern Russian literature and the language of the great poets and novelists, he said: "Pushkin himself appears to me ridiculous. The language of the people, on the contrary, has sounds to express everything that the poet is able to say, and it is very dear to me." In the same letter he wrote, "'Poor Lisa' drew tears and received homage, but no one reads her any more, while popular songs and tales, and folk-lore ballads will live as long as the Russian language."
In his views of art, in his views of morals, in his views of religion, Tolstoi developed, but he did not change. He simply followed his ideas to their farthest possible extreme, so that many Anglo-Saxons suspected him even of madness. In reality, the method of his thought is characteristically and purely Russian. An Englishman may be in love with an idea, and start out bravely to follow it; but if he finds it leading him into a position contrary to the experience of humanity, then he pulls up, and decides that the idea must be false, even if he can detect no flaw in it; not so the Russian; the idea is right, and humanity is wrong.
No author ever told us so much about himself as Tolstoi. Not only do we now possess his letters and journals, in which he revealed his inner life with the utmost clarity of detail, but all his novels, even those that seem the most objective, are really part of his autobiography. Through the persons of different characters he is always talking about himself, always introspective. That is one reason why his novels seem so amazingly true to life. They seem true because they are true.
Some one said of John Stuart Mill, "Analysis is the king of his intellect." This remark is also true of most Russian novelists, and particularly true of Tolstoi. In all his work, historical romance, realistic novels, religious tracts, his greatest power was shown in the correct analysis of mental states. And he took all human nature for his province. Strictly speaking, there are no minor characters in his books. The same pains are taken with persons who have little influence on the course of the story, as with the chief actors. The normal interests him even more than the abnormal, which is the great difference between his work and that of Gorki and Andreev, as it was the most striking difference between Shakespeare and his later contemporaries. To reveal ordinary people just as they really are,--sometimes in terrific excitement, sometimes in humdrum routine,--this was his aim. Natural scenery is occasionally introduced, like the mountains in The Cossacks, to show how the spectacle affects the mind of the person who is looking at it. It is seldom made use of for a background. Mere description occupied a very small place in Tolstoi's method. The intense fidelity to detail in the portrayal of character, whether obsessed by a mighty passion, or playing with a trivial caprice, is the chief glory of his work. This is why, after the reading of Tolstoi, so many other "realistic" novels seem utterly untrue and absurd.
The three stories, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, now generally published as one novel, are the work of a genius, but not a work of genius. They are interesting in the light of their author's later books, and they are valuable as autobiography. The fact that he himself repudiated them, was ashamed of having written them, and declared that their style was unnatural, means little or much, according to one's viewpoint. But the undoubted power revealed here and there in their pages is immature, a mere suggestion of what was to follow. They are exercises in composition. He learned how to write in writing these. But the intention of their author is clear enough. His "stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul." There is not a single unusual or sensational event in the whole narrative, nor did the hero grow up in any strange or remarkable environment. The interest therefore is not in what happened, but wholly in the ripening character of the child. The circumstances are partly true of Tolstoi's own boyhood, partly not; he purposely mixed his own and his friends' experiences. But mentally the boy is Tolstoi himself, revealed in all the awkwardness, self-consciousness, and morbidity of youth. The boy's pride, vanity, and curious mixture of timidity and conceit do not form a very attractive picture, and were not intended to. Tolstoi himself as a young man had little charm, and his numerous portraits all plainly indicate the fact. His Satanic pride made frank friendship with him almost an impossibility. Despite our immense respect for his literary power, despite the enormous influence for good that his later books have effected, it must be said that of all the great Russian writers, Tolstoi was the most unlovely.
These three sketches, taken as one, are grounded on moral ideas--the same ideas that later completely dominated the author's life. We feel his hatred of dissipation and of artificiality. The chapter on Love, in Youth, might also form a part of the Kreuzer Sonata, so fully does it harmonise with the teaching of the later work.
"I do not speak of the love of a young man for a young girl, and hers for him; I fear these tendernesses, and I have been so unfortunate in life as never to have seen a single spark of truth in this species of love, but only a lie, in which sentiment, connubial relations, money, a desire to bind or to unbind one's hands, have to such an extent confused the feeling itself, that it has been impossible to disentangle it. I am speaking of the love for man."*
* Translated by Isabel Hapgood.