Chapter IV: Part 4

19. This work, though only covering some sixty pages, written as it was at the age of thirty-two, when Turgenef stood as yet at the threshold of his artistic career, is in fact, as it were, an epitome of all Turgenef's forces as an artist. While in power of impression it is the peer of Tolstoy's "Ivan Ilyitsh," with which it has a striking family resemblance, it surpasses Tolstoy's sketch in the wealth of delicately shaded gems of workmanship, which glow throughout the worklet. (1) In the small provincial town, for instance, the lion from St. Petersburg, Prince N., captures the hearts of all. A ball is given in his honor, and the prince, says Turgenef, "was encircled by the host, yes, encircled as England is encircled by the sea." My ball-giving, my lion-hunting friend, _thou_ knowest the singular felicity of that one word here,--encircled! (2) The superfluous man's beloved is at last seduced by the lionized prince, and she becomes the talk of the town. A good-natured lieutenant, now first introduced by Turgenef, calls on the wretched man to console him, and the unhappy lover writes in his Diary: "I feared lest he should mention Liza. But my good lieutenant was not a gossip, and, moreover, he despised all women, calling them, God knows why, salad." This is all the description Turgenef devotes to this lieutenant; but this making him despise women under the appellation of half-sour, half-sweet conglomerate of egg-and-vegetable salad, describes the lieutenant in two lines more faithfully than pages of scientific, realistic photography. (3) Before the ruin of poor Liza becomes known, and while the prince, her seducer, is still on the height of lionization, he is challenged to a duel by Liza's faithful lover. The superfluous man wounds the prince's cheek; the prince, who deems his rival unworthy of even a shot, retaliates by firing into the air. Superfluous man is of course crushed, annihilated, and he describes his feelings thus: "Evidently this man was bound to crush me; with this magnanimity of his he slammed me in, just as the lid of the coffin is slammed down over the corpse." (4) You think, then, that the sufferings of the despairing lover as he sees his beloved going to ruin, into the arms of the seducer, are indescribable? But not to Turgenef. Says again the superfluous man in his Diary: "When our sorrows reach a phase in which they force our whole inside to quake and to squeak like an overloaded cart, then they cease to be ridiculous." Verily, only those who have been shaken to the very depths of their being can understand the marvellous fidelity of this image, the soul quaking and squeaking like an overloaded cart,--all the more faithful because of its very homeliness. Do not wonder, therefore, when the last, intensest grief, the consciousness of being crushed by his rival, finds in his Diary the following expression: (5) "And so I suffered," says the superfluous man, "like a dog whose hind parts had been crushed in by the cart-wheel as it passed over him." A more powerful description of agony, methinks, is not found even in Gogol's laughter through tears.

20. And the third great virtue of Turgenef's art is his love of Nature; and here I know not where to look for the like of him, unless to another great master of Russian letters,--to Tolstoy. For Gogol is indeed also a painter, but only a landscape-painter, while Turgenef makes you feel even the breeze of a summer eve.

21. So thrilled is his being with the love of Nature, that all her moods find a ready response in his sensitive soul. The joy of the sunshine, the melancholy of the sky shut down by huge cloud, the grandeur of the thunder, the quiver of the lightning, the glow of the dawn, the babble of the brook, and even the waving of the grass-blade,--all these he reproduces with the fidelity of one who _reveres_ Nature. Turgenef has thus at least one element of the highest religiousness,--reverence towards the powers of Nature superior to man; a reverence the possession of which he himself would perhaps have been the first to deny, since consciously he was an irreverent agnostic. But his soul was wiser than his logic; and however dead his head might declare the universe to be, his hand painted it as if alive. This, for instance, is how he describes a storm:--

"Meanwhile, along with the evening was approaching a thunder-storm.
Already ever since noon the air had been close, and from the
distance there was coming a low grumbling. But now the broad cloud
that had long been resting like a layer of lead on the very edge of
the horizon began to grow, and to be visible from behind the trees:
the stifling atmosphere began to tremble more visibly, shaken
stronger and stronger by the approaching thunder; the wind rose,
howled abruptly through the trees, became still, howled again
protractedly, and now it whistled. A sombre darkness ran over the
ground, chasing swiftly away the last glimmer of the dawn; the thick
clouds breaking to pieces suddenly began to float, and drove through
the sky; now, a slight shower began to sprinkle, the lightning
flared up with a red flame, and the thunder growled angrily and
heavily."

22. Observe here the felicity of the metaphor: the cloud rests, the air trembles and is soon shaken, the darkness _runs_ over the ground, and the thunder growls in anger. Only the eye which sees at bottom life in Nature's forces could see them in such vivifying images.

23. Lastly, the fourth great virtue of Turgenef's art is his intense power of sympathy.

24. In the universality of his sympathies he is equalled again only by Tolstoy. Like him he can depict the feelings of a dog, of a bird, with a self-attesting fidelity, as if his nature were at one with theirs; and the one child of creation which man has repeatedly been declared unable to paint truthfully, namely, woman, Turgenef has painted with a grace and faithfulness unapproached even by George Eliot or by George Sand. For Turgenef loved woman as no woman could love her, and his faith in her was unbounded. Hence, when in his "On the Eve" he wishes to give expression to his despair over the _men_ of Russia, so that he has to seek the ideal of a patriot not in a Russian, but in a Bulgarian, he still rests the hope of the country on its women; and Helen, Turgenef's noblest conception among women, as Insarof is among men, is not like him a foreigner, but a Russian. And this is how Turgenef paints the noblest moment in the life of the noblest of his women.

25. The poor, prospectless foreigner Insarof discovers that he loves the rich, high-stationed Helen. He does not know that he is loved in return, and he decides to depart without taking even leave of her. They meet, however, unexpectedly.

"'You come from our house, don't you?' Helen asked.

"'No, ... not from your house.'

"'No?' repeated Helen, and tried to smile. 'And is it thus you keep
your promise? I have been expecting you all the morning.'

"'Helen Nikolayevna, I promised nothing yesterday.'

"Helen tried to smile again, and passed her hand across her face.
Both face and hand were very pale. 'You intended, then, to depart
without taking leave of us?'

"'Yes,' he muttered, almost fiercely.

"'How, after our acquaintance, after our talks, after all ... So, if
I had not then met you here accidentally (her voice began to ring,
and she stopped for a moment) ... you would have gone off, and would
not have even shaken my hand in parting; gone off without regret?'

"Insarof turned away. 'Helen Nikolayevna, please don't speak thus. I
am, as it is, already not cheerful. Believe me, my decision has cost
me great effort. If you knew ...'

"'I don't wish to know why you depart,' Helen interrupted him,
frightened. 'This is evidently necessary. We must evidently part.
You would not grieve your friends without cause. But do friends part
thus? We are of course friends, are not we?'

"'No,' said Insarof.

"'How?' muttered Helen, and her cheeks colored slightly.

"'Why, that is exactly why I go away, because we are not friends.
Don't oblige me to say what I do not wish to tell, what I shall not
tell.'

"'Formerly you used to be frank with me,' Helen spoke up with a
slight reproach. 'Do you remember?'

"'Then I could be frank; then I had nothing to hide. But now--'

"'But now?' asked Helen.

"'But now ... But now I must go. Good-by!'

"Had Insarof at this moment raised his eyes to Helen, he would have
seen that her whole face shone,--shone the more, the more his face
grew gloomy and dark; but his eyes were stubbornly fixed on the
floor.

"'Well, good-by, Dimitry Nikanorovitch,' she began. 'But since we
have met, give me now at least your hand.'

"Insarof started to give her his hand. 'No, I cannot even do that,'
he said, and again turned away.

"'You cannot?'

"'I cannot. Good-by!' And he started to go out.

"'Just wait a moment,' she said. 'It seems you are afraid of me.
Now, I am braver than you,' she added, with a sudden slight tremor
along her whole frame. 'I can tell you ... do you wish me to tell
... why you found me here? Do you know where I was going?'

"Insarof looked in surprise at Helen.

"'I was going to your house.'

"'To my house?'

"Helen covered her face. 'You wished to compel me to say that I love
you,' she whispered--'there, I have said it.'

"'Helen!' exclaimed Insarof.

"She took his hands, looked at him, and fell upon his breast.

"He embraced her firmly, and remained silent. There was no need of
telling her that he loved her. From his one exclamation, from this
instantaneous transformation of the whole man, from the manner in
which rose and fell that breast to which she clung so trustfully,
from the manner in which the tips of his fingers touched her hair,
Helen could see that she was loved. He was silent, but she needed no
words. 'He is here, he loves; what more is there needed?' The calm
of blessedness, the quiet of the undisturbed haven, of the attained
goal, that heavenly calm which lends a meaning and a beauty to death
itself, filled her whole being with a godly wave. She wished
nothing, because she possessed everything. 'O my brother, my friend,
my darling!' her lips whispered; and she herself knew not whose
heart it was, his or hers, which was so sweetly beating and melting
away in her breast.

"But he stood motionless, enclosing in his firm embrace the young
life which had just given itself entire unto him; he felt on his
breast this new, priceless burden; a feeling of tenderness, a
feeling of gratitude inexpressible, shivered into dust his hard
soul, and tears, hitherto unknown to him, came to his eyes.

"But she wept not; she only kept repeating: 'O my friend! O my
brother!'

"'Then you will go with me everywhere,' he said to her, some fifteen
minutes later, as before enclosing and supporting her in his
embrace.

"'Everywhere, to the end of the earth; wherever you are, there shall
I be.'

"'And you are sure you do not deceive yourself? You know your
parents will never consent to our marriage?'

"'I am not deceiving myself; I know it.'

"'You know I am poor, almost a beggar?'

"'I know it.'

"'That I am not a Russian, that I am fated to live beyond Russia,
that you will have to break all your ties with your country and your
family?'

"'I know it, I know it.'

"'You know also that I have devoted my life to a difficult,
thankless task; that I ... that we shall have to expose ourselves
not only to dangers, but to deprivation, and to degradation
perhaps?'

"'I know, I know it all ... but I love you.'

"'That you will have to give up all your habits; that there alone,
among strangers, you will perhaps have to toil?'

"She put her hands on his lips. 'I love you, darling.'

"He began to kiss warmly her narrow, rosy hand. Helen did not take
her hand from his lips, and with a kind of childish joy, with
laughing curiosity, she watched him covering with kisses now her
hand, now her fingers.

"Suddenly she blushed, and hid her face on his breast.

"He gently raised up her head and looked firmly into her eyes.

"'So God be with you,' he said; 'be thou my wife both before men and
before God.'"

26. These, then, were the numerous great virtues of Turgenef; and they have made him the most enjoyable of artists. But his one great vice, the vice of doubt, the vice of hopelessness, has made him, as a nourisher of the spirit, among the least profitable as a writer.

27. For, O my friends, it cannot be stated too often that whatever puts new strength into the spirit is from the great God, the Good; and whatever takes strength from the spirit is from the great Devil, the Evil. And the things that have ever proved the inexhaustible sources of strength to the soul have been not doubt and despair, but faith and hope,--faith that the destinies of men are guided by love even though guided through the agony of sorrow; faith that behind this appearance of discord and blind fate and brute force there is after all to be found the substance of harmony, of wise forethought, of tender love; hope, that however terrible the present, the future will yet be one of joy, one of peace. If reason with its logic can strengthen this faith, this hope, then welcome reason, blessed be reason; but if reason with its logic can only make me doubt the presence of wisdom, the presence of love, then begone reason, cursed be reason. Verily, by their fruits ye shall know them!

28. Turgenef therefore was incapable of creating a Levin, because he had not the faith which makes the Levins of Tolstoy possible. He was filled with the pessimistic woe of the world, believed at bottom that man, born in sorrow, must also live in sorrow. With the sublimity of a prophet, Turgenef cries: "From the inmost depths of the virgin forest, from the eternal depth of the waters, resounds the same cry of Nature to man: 'I have naught to do with thee. I rule, but thou--look to thy life, O worm!'" While personally he indeed contributed what lay in his power to alleviate the present ills of men, he could do naught towards alleviating the future ills of men; for he could not inspire men with hope, since he had none himself. For hope comes from faith, and Turgenef was devoid of faith. Turgenef, like another great master of fiction, George Eliot, was a veritable child of the immature age, not of science, of knowledge, but of nescience, of ignorance, of agnosticism; for it is only ignorance that doubts, and it is true science that believes.

29. I cannot therefore ask you to take leave with me of Turgenef without at least urging you to profit by this one fact in his life. Turgenef failed to reach the highest, the height of Tolstoy, because he failed to free himself from that alone which must forever trammel the soul. He failed to free himself from that fundamental distrust of God which is at bottom of all despair. You, too, my friends, have that distrust. O ye in society who dread the consequences of having one kind word to say, or even one glance of recognition to cast at a brother because forsooth he has not been properly introduced to you, are not ye doubting your own God in your breasts, which acts not in fear of your fellow-men, but in trust of them? And, O ye who refuse to help a begging brother for fear lest he prove an impostor, are not ye likewise at bottom doubting the God within you which acts through pity to a brother, even though he _do_ deceive? Turgenef fell short of the highest because he did not cast off the scepticism of his intellect. Are not ye, my friends, likewise in danger of falling short of the highest because you too do not cast off the scepticism of the heart?

LECTURE V.

TOLSTOY THE ARTIST.

1. I have stated in the first lecture that the soul of man ever strives onward and upward; that its goal is the establishment of the kingdom of heaven, which consists in reverence before God above, and in love towards man here below. I have stated that of this journey of the soul heavenward, literature is the record; that the various phases of literary development are only so many mile-posts on the road; that after the voices of the singer, of the protester, of the warrior, are hushed, there must be heard what must remain forever the loftiest voice in letters,--the voice of the preacher, the prophet, the inspirer. And I have stated that just as Pushkin is the singer, Gogol the protester, and Turgenef the fighter, so is Tolstoy in Russian literature the preacher, the inspirer.

2. But just because he is the prophet, the uplifter, the proclaimer, Tolstoy is no longer the _merely_ Russian writer. Pushkin is the _Russian_ singer, Gogol is the _Russian_ protester, and Turgenef is the _Russian_ fighter; but Tolstoy is not the inspirer of Russia alone, but of all mankind. Tolstoy has the least of the Russian in him, because he has the most of the man in him; he has the least of the son of the Slav in him, because he has the most of the Son of God in him. The voice of Leo Tolstoy is not the voice of the nineteenth century, but of all centuries; the voice of Leo Tolstoy is not the voice of one land, but of all lands; for the voice of Leo Tolstoy, in short, is the voice of God speaking through man.

3. For, O my friends, there _is_ a God in heaven, even though the voices of pessimism and agnosticism be raised never so high against him. There is a God who ruleth over the heavens and over the earth; and he is boundless with space, and everlasting with time; and he is sublime with the sky, and he twinkleth with the star; and he smileth with the sun, and he beameth with the moon; and he floateth with the cloud, and he saileth with the wind; he flasheth with the lightning, and resoundeth with the thunder, he heaveth with the sea, and he dasheth with the surf; he floweth with the river, and he rusheth with the torrent; he babbleth with the brook, and he sparkleth with the dew-drop; he reposeth with the landscape, and he laugheth with the meadow; he waveth with the tree, and he quivereth with the leaf; he singeth with the bird, and he buzzeth with the bee; he roareth with the lion, and he pranceth with the steed; he crawleth with the worm, and he soareth with the eagle; he darteth with the porpoise, and he diveth with the fish; he dwelleth with the loving, and he pleadeth with the hating; he shineth with the merciful, and he aspireth with the prayerful. He is ever nigh unto men,--he, the Prince of Light!

4. And I say unto ye that the Lord God hath not hid himself from the hearts of men; he that spake unto Moses and the prophets, and through them,--he is still nigh. He that spake unto Jesus and the Apostles, and through them,--he is still nigh. He that spake to Mohammed and Luther, and through them,--he is still nigh. He recently spake through Carlyle and through Emerson, and their voices are not yet hushed. And he still speaketh, my friends, through Ruskin in England and through Tolstoy in Russia, as he ever shall speak through all earnest souls who love him with all their heart because they know him, who seek him with all their heart because they know him not. Think not therefore the Lord God hath ceased to speak unto men through men; verily, if men but see to it that there be enough inspired, God will see to it that there be enough inspirers.

5. And of these Heaven-sent inspirers, Tolstoy is the latest. But do not believe that in saying that he is Heaven-sent I attempt to explain aught. The highest is ever inexplicable, and it is the bane of modern science that it is ever ready to explain what cannot be explained. Before the highest we can only stand dumb; and this has been the feeling of the greatest, because of the humblest, of spirits. The Greek painter, therefore, when about to depict the highest grief of a father, gives up in despair, and veils the father's face; and Meyer von Bremen's grandmother, when confronted with the question from the children whence came that sweet babe in her arms, can only reply, "The storks brought it;" and so I can say to you only, Tolstoy is sent unto men from Heaven.

6. I say he is Heaven-sent, because he came to proclaim not what is ephemeral and perishing, but what is permanent and everlasting. He came to proclaim not the latest theory of gravitation, of molecular vibration, of modes of heat and manners of cold, nor of struggle for existence, nor of supply and demand, nay, not even of scientific charity. He came to proclaim that which was as true in the days of Jesus as it is true in the days of Darwin,--that the life of man can have no meaning, unless when guided by obedience to God and love to man. Gravitation, struggle for existence! The earth has been spinning round its parent for ages before man's brain-kin made the marvellous discovery that God's mysterious impulse which set the earth whirling through the abysses of space is explained in right scientific fashion by labelling it gravitation. This green earth has rolled on, this green earth will roll on, label or no label; and the mystery of God men knew not before gravitation, nor do they know it now with gravitation. Men have for ages been multiplying under the blessing of God, and loving one another, long before that marvellous discovery was made that man, sprung from a monkey, and bred in struggle for existence, is destined at last, under fine progress of species, to become brutalized with Malthusian law as a cannibal living on the flesh of his brother, with self-respect and scientific charity in most abundant supply and demand. Tolstoy came to proclaim not the new gospel of death, but the old gospel of life; not the new gospel of struggle for existence, but the old gospel of helpfulness for existence; not the new gospel of competition, but the old gospel of brotherhood. Tolstoy came to proclaim the gospel of God, the gospel of man, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of Socrates, the gospel of Epictetus, of Aurelius, of Carlyle, of Emerson,--the gospel of reverence before God and love to man, which is indeed ever old, but which, alas! the sons of Darkness see to it that it remain forever new.

7. These, then, are the men among whom Tolstoy belongs: which of these the greater, which of these the less? My friends, when we arrive at these, we are no longer among the measurable planets, but among the immeasurable fixed stars. Sirius flashes indeed with greater splendor than Vega, and Vega than Arcturus, and Arcturus than Capella, and Capella flashes with greater splendor than Aldebaran; but who shall undertake to say which of these suns is the greater, which is the less? The difference of splendor is not in the stars themselves, but in our eyes. And at this our immeasurable distance from these souls who are nighest unto the throne of the Most High, it is not for me, the worm, as I stand before you, to presume to measure which is the greater, which is the less. Rather than spending our time in profitless weighing and measuring, let me beseech you to bow your heads in awe and gratitude, praising God for the mercy which sendeth now and then unto men the living voice, the helping voice.

8. Tolstoy, therefore, is one of those spirits whom I cannot approach with the dissecting-knife, as the critic does the author, in order to "account" for him. To do this, that total freedom from sentiment is required which was possessed by the enterprising reporter who on the death of a prominent citizen forthwith requested an interview with "corpse's uncle." In an age when sentiment has become a byword of impotence, and the heart has become a mere force-pump for the blood; in an age when charity has to be put in swaddling-clothes lest it injure a brother by helping him; when the poor are preached to by their rich visiting friends, not to make a home for themselves when their love for a mate is born in the heart, but only when it is born in the purse,--in such an age that reporter's freedom from sentiment is indeed a most valuable acquisition; but I, alas! as yet possess it not! I shall therefore neither judge the preacher Tolstoy, nor measure him. I shall only point out to you to-day wherein he differs, as he must needs differ, from the rest of that noble band of the chosen messengers of God to which he belongs.

9. And the first striking difference is that Tolstoy is a consummate artist, a creator, in addition to the great preacher. For Marcus Aurelius is no artist. He is merely a speaker; he delivers his message in plain tongue, unadorned, often even unpolished. Epictetus, equally simple, equally direct with Marcus Aurelius, comes, however, already adorned with a certain humor which now and then sparkles through his serious pages. Ruskin brings with him quite a respectable load of artistic baggage; he brings an incisiveness, a sarcasm, often a piquancy with him, which makes him entertaining besides inspiring. Emerson and Carlyle bring with them much that, as artistic work; might, under more favorable auspices, have been worth saving for its own sake: the one brings a grace, a sportiveness, and a brilliancy which fascinates, the other a fervor, an imagination, a grim-humor, a lightning-flashing, which dazzles. But none of these live in letters because of their art. Were they to depend on this alone, they would quickly perish. They live because of the spirit which worketh through them; so that were you to take the Jeremiah out of Carlyle, the John the Baptist out of Ruskin, and the Solomon out of Emerson, you would deprive them of their literary life. Tolstoy, however, even though the preacher be gone from him, still remains a mighty power in letters because of his art. For not only are his works filled with the highest purpose,--they are also created with the highest art. And I cannot show you this difference any better than by quoting two passages, one from Carlyle, the other from Tolstoy, both treating of the soul's well-nigh noblest emotion,--Repentance.

"On the whole, we make too much of faults. Faults? The greatest of
faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. Readers of the
Bible, above all, one would think, might know better. Who is called
there 'the man according to God's own heart'? David, the Hebrew
king, had fallen into sins enough; blackest crimes; there was no
want of sins. And therefore the unbelievers sneer, and ask, 'Is this
the man according to God's own heart?' The sneer, I must say, seems
to be but a shallow one.

"What are faults, what are the outward details of a life, if the
inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, true, often-battled,
never-ending struggle of it be forgotten? 'It is not in man that
walketh to direct his steps.' Of all acts, is not, for a man,
_repentance_ the most divine? The deadliest sin, I say, were the
same supercilious consciousness of no sin; that is death; the heart
so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility, and fact,--is
dead; it is 'pure,' as dead dry sand is pure.

"David's life and history, as written for us in those Psalms of his,
I consider to be the truest emblem ever given of man's moral
progress and warfare here below. All earnest men will ever discern
in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul toward what is
good and best. Struggle often baffled, sore battled, down as into
entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended; ever with tears,
repentance, true unconquerable purpose begun anew. Poor human
nature! Is not a man's walking, in truth, always that,--'a
succession of falls'? Man can do no other. In this wild element of
Life, he has to struggle onward; now fallen, deep abased; and ever
with tears, repentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again,
struggle again still onward. That his struggle _be_ a faithful,
unconquerable one; that is the question of questions. We will put up
with many sad details, if the soul of it were true. Details by
themselves will never teach us what it is."

10. Powerful as this passage is, I cannot help feeling that Tolstoy has treated the same subject more artistically than Carlyle, by embodying his lesson in objective shape, where Carlyle treats it subjectively. And now listen to Tolstoy:--

THE REPENTING SINNER.

There lived in the world a man for seventy years, and all his life
he lived in sin. And this man fell ill, and still he did not repent.
But when death was nigh, at the last hour, he began to weep, and
said, "Lord, as thou hast forgiven the thief on the cross, so do
thou forgive me!" He had scarcely spoken, and away flew his soul.
And the sinner's soul began to love God, and, trusting his mercy,
came to the gates of heaven.

And the sinner began to knock, and to ask admission into the kingdom
of heaven.

And from behind the door he heard a voice: "Who is this knocking for
admission into the gates of heaven, and what are the deeds this man
in his lifetime has done?"

And the voice of the accuser gave answer, and recounted all the
sinful deeds of this man; and of good deeds he named none.

And the voice from behind the door answered: "Sinners cannot enter
the kingdom of heaven. Get thee hence!"

Said the sinner: "Lord, I hear thy voice, but I see not thy
countenance and know not thy name."

And the voice gave in reply: "I am Peter the Apostle."

Said the sinner: "Have mercy upon me, Apostle Peter; remember the
weakness of man, and the mercy of God. Was it not you who was a
disciple of Christ, and was it not you who heard from his own lips
his teaching, and saw the example of his life? And now remember,
when he was weary and sad in spirit, and thrice asked thee not to
slumber, but to pray, you slept, because your eyes were heavy, and
thrice he found you sleeping. The same of me.

"And remember likewise how thou hast promised to him not to renounce
him until thy dying day, and yet thou didst renounce him thrice
when they led him away. The same of me.

"And remember likewise how crowed the cock, and thou hast gone forth
and wept bitterly. The same of me. Not for thee 'tis to refuse me
entrance."

And the voice from behind the gates of heaven was hushed.

And after standing some time, again knocked the sinner, and asked
admittance into the kingdom of heaven.

And from behind the doors there was heard another voice which spake:
"Who is this, and how has he lived on earth?"

And the voice of the accuser gave answer, and repeated all the evil
deeds of the sinner; and of the good deeds he named none.

And the voice from behind the door called: "Get thee hence. Sinners
such as thou cannot live with us in Paradise."

Said the sinner: "Lord, thy voice I hear, but thy face I see not,
and thy name I know not."

And the voice said unto him: "I am David, the king and the prophet."
But the sinner despaired not, nor went he away from the gates of
heaven, but spake as follows: "Have mercy upon me, King David, and
think of the weakness of man and the mercy of God. God loved thee
and raised thee up before men. Thine was all,--a kingdom, and
glory, and riches, and wives, and children; yet when thou didst espy
from thy roof the wife of a poor man, sin betook thee, and thou hast
taken the wife of Uriah, and himself hast thou slain by the sword of
the Ammonites. Thou, a rich man, hast taken his last lamb from the
poor man, and hast slain the owner himself. The same of me!

"And think further how thou hast repented, and said: 'I confess my
guilt, and repent of my sin.' The same of me. Not for thee 'tis to
refuse me entrance."

And the voice behind the door was hushed.

And after standing some time, again knocked the sinner, and asked
admission into the kingdom of heaven. And from behind the doors was
heard a third voice which spake: "Who is this, and how hath he lived
on earth?"

And for the third time the voice of the accuser recounted the evil
deeds of the man, but of the good he named none.

And the voice from behind the door gave in answer: "Get thee hence!
The kingdom of heaven not by a sinner can be entered."

And replied the sinner: "Thy voice I hear, but thy face I see not,
and thy name I know not."

Answered the voice: "I am John, the beloved disciple of Christ."

And rejoiced the sinner, and spake: "Now verily shall I be let in.
Peter and David shall admit me because they know the weakness of
man, and the grace of God; but thou shalt admit me because thou hast
much love. For hast thou not writ in thy book, O John, that God is
Love, and that whosoever knoweth not Love, knoweth not God? Wert not
thou he that spake in his old age unto men only this one word:
'Brethren, love ye one another'? How then shalt thou now hate me and
drive me hence? Either renounce thine own words, or learn to love
me, and admit me into the kingdom of heaven."

And the gates of heaven opened, and John embraced the repenting
sinner, and admitted him into the kingdom of heaven.

11. Tolstoy, then, is the sole example among men of the harmonious combination of loftiest aspiration with highest artistic skill. Tolstoy sees in himself only the preacher, and therefore at the age of sixty he does not hesitate to repudiate all those works of his which are not those of the preacher, however great their value as works of art. Turgenef sees in him only the artist, and therefore beseeches from his death-bed his fellow-craftsman to give himself back to the forsaken art. Both are here right, both are here wrong. For each sees only one side, while Tolstoy is neither the preacher alone nor the artist alone. Tolstoy, like Janus of old, is two-faced,--the artist, when his soul is in a state of war; the preacher, when his soul is in a state of peace. Turgenef looks only upon the face of the artist; Tolstoy looks out into the world with the face of the preacher.

12. This noble combination of the preacher and the artist has accordingly determined the character of Tolstoy's art. For the first question Tolstoy asks of every event, of every phenomenon he has to depict, is, What effect has this on the soul of man; what bearing has this on the life of man; what, in short, is its moral meaning? Hence when Tolstoy paints, he paints not only objectively, but also subjectively. In the storm-scene, for instance, which I have read you at the first lecture, Tolstoy is not satisfied to give you merely the outward appearance of the storm, its appearance in Nature, he rests not until he has painted also its effect on the soul; and the progress of the terror inspired keeps pace with the advance of the cloud. Hence the sudden introduction of the beggar from under the bridge, with his horrible stump of hand stretched out as he runs beside the carriage begging for alms. This incident is as much part of the storm, and as terrifying to the little Katenka and the little Lubotshka as the glare of the lightning and the crash of the thunder. Tolstoy the artist never sees Nature with the eyes of the body, but with the eyes of the spirit, he never sees matter without the underlying mind; he never sees the object without its complement, the subject. Tolstoy, therefore, is the first great artist (and if the one-eyed prophets of the merely _objective_ art prevail, who now clamor so loudly, he promises, alas! to remain also the last) who has painted Nature entire. Tolstoy is the first great artist, therefore, into whose pictures enter not only the details visible, but also the details invisible. To Tolstoy, the vibration of the string is not described in completeness until he has also shown how its music has made to vibrate not only the air, but also the soul. Painter then of the inward universe as well as of the outward, of the spiritual as well as of the natural, of the things unseen as well as of those seen, Tolstoy has exhausted Nature. He has plunged into her nethermost depths, like Schiller's diver, and lo! forth he comes from the abyss with her swallowed-up treasure. Verily, here Tolstoy is unapproachable. Only one other man of letters hath here even distant fellowship with him, and this is Ralph Waldo Emerson.

13. That an art which is born of such a union of the preacher with the worshipper of beauty as it exists in Tolstoy, can only be of the highest, and must be of the highest, I therefore no longer hesitate to affirm. Read, therefore, in this light the successive chapters in Book VII. of "Anna Karenina," where is told the birth of a son of Kitty and Levin. Our modern apostles of the gospel of fidelity at all hazards, even though it be the fidelity of dirt, would have here made you look at the blood, at the towels, at the bowls, at the bottles, would have made you smell the odors,--they would have recounted to you all those details which, however pathetic to those doomed to be by-standers in the sick-room, can only be nauseating to those out of the sick-room. Tolstoy the preacher is impressed with the immeasurable pain which attends the entrance into the world of a newly-born human soul,--agony unendurable, all the more unendurable because inexplicable, inscrutable. His great artistic soul rests not until it hath relieved itself with at least a cry over such sorrow. Paint it therefore he must; but he paints it, observe, not directly, by photographing the tortures of Kitty, but indirectly, by picturing the agony of Levin; for the one would have only nauseated, the other stirs the reader to his very depths. The husband suffers more than the wife, because he sees her not with the eyes of the head, but with the eyes of the heart; the groans of Kitty, which reach him from the neighboring chamber, can indeed be silenced by the physician's drug; but no drug can silence the groan of Levin, for it is pressed out by the agony, not of the body, but by the agony of the soul. And as love, sympathy, is ever an eye-opener, so here Tolstoy, the consummate artist, has reproduced the scene of the sick-room with the highest fidelity, because he has reproduced it not with the arts of cold mechanical photography, but with those of warm, sympathetic imagination. Tolstoy reproduces therefore with the highest faithfulness because he too sees not with the eye of the head, but with the eye of the heart.

14. And for the highest example of such art I will venture to read to you the passage in which Tolstoy tells of Anna Karenina's fall. Until the reader comes to this passage, there is not a syllable to tell him that she _has_ fallen. Observe then Tolstoy's manner of telling it. I venture to think it far more faithful than any realistic art could have made it by furnishing details not necessarily more true because less delicate:--

"That in which during almost a whole year consisted the one,
exclusive longing of Vronsky's life, that which had supplanted all
his former wishes, that which to Anna had been a dream of
impossible, terrible, yet for this reason all the more fascinating
happiness,--this wish was at last gratified. Pale, with his lower
jaw trembling, he stood over her and begged her to quiet herself,
not knowing himself how and what.

"'Anna, Anna,' he spake with trembling voice. 'Anna, for God's
sake!'

"But the louder he spake, the lower sank her head, once proud and
glad, now abased; she now crouched, and was sinking from the sofa,
where she had been sitting, to the floor, at his feet. She would
have fallen on the carpet had he not supported her. 'O my God,
forgive me!' she sobbed, and pressed his hands to her breast.

"So criminal and so guilty she felt herself, that the only thing
left her was to humiliate herself and to beg forgiveness. But now
she had no one in life left her but him, and to him she turns with
prayer for forgiveness. As she gazed at him she physically felt her
degradation, and she could say nothing more. And he on his part felt
what a murderer must feel when beholding the body he has just
deprived of its life. This body, deprived by him of its life, was
their love, the first period of their love. There was something
horrible and repulsive in the memory of that which was purchased at
the terrible price of shame. The shame of her moral nakedness was
stifling to her, and this stifling feeling communicated itself also
to him. But, in spite of all the horror before the body of the
slain, the body must be cut into pieces, must be hidden away, and
use must be made of what the murderer had obtained by his murder.

"And as the murderer with fierceness, almost with passion, throws
himself upon the body and drags it and hacks it, so he too kept
covering with kisses her face and her shoulders. She kept his hand
and moved not. Yes, these kisses,--this it was which was bought with
this her shame. 'Yes, and this one hand which will always be mine is
the hand of my--confederate.' She raised this hand and kissed it. He
dropped on his knees and wished to see her face, but she hid her
face and said naught. At last, as if making an effort over herself,
she rose and pushed him away. Her face was indeed as handsome as
ever, but it was now pitiful all the more.

"''Tis all ended,' she said. 'I have nothing left but thee. Remember
this.'

"'I cannot help remembering what constitutes my life. For one minute
of this blessedness ...'

"'Blessedness!' she uttered with terror and disgust, and her terror
communicated itself to him. 'For God's sake, not a word, not one
word more!'

"She quickly rose and turned away from him.

"'Not another word,' she repeated; and with an expression strange
to him, with an expression of cold despair on her face, she parted
from him. She felt that at this moment she could not express in
words her feeling of shame, joy, and terror before this entrance
into a new life, and she did not wish to speak of it, to lower that
feeling with inexact words. But even later, on the morrow, and on
the third day, she not only could find no words for expressing the
whole complexity of these feelings, but she could not find even
thoughts, in revolving which she might clearly define to herself
whatever was going on in her soul.

"She said to herself, 'No, I cannot think this out now; later, when
I shall be more calm.' But this calmness for her thoughts never
came; whenever the thought came to her of what she had done, and of
what was to become of her, and of what she must do, terror came upon
her, and she drove away these thoughts.

"'Later, later,' she repeated, 'when I am more calm.'

"But in sleep, when she had no control over her thoughts, her
situation appeared to her in all its ugly nakedness. One dream came
to her almost nightly. She dreamed that both were her husbands, that
both were spending upon her their caresses. Alexei Alexandrovitsh
cried as he kissed her hands, and said, 'Ah, how good this is!' And
Alexei Vronsky was there, and he also was her husband. And she
wondered why all this had hitherto seemed to her impossible, and
explained to them laughingly how simple all this was, and that now
they were both content and happy. But the dream oppressed her like
an Alp, and she awoke every time in terror."

15. And of such unapproachable art the examples in Tolstoy are well-nigh innumerable. There is hardly a single work of Tolstoy in which he does not display that marvellous fidelity which has made Mr. Howells exclaim: "This is not a picture of life, but life itself!" And this fidelity Tolstoy attains not so much by depicting the event itself as by depicting its effect on the soul; just as the silent sight of the wounded on the field tells of the battle more loudly than the thunder of the cannon. I say this is the highest art, because its method is universal, where all others are only particular; for men may indeed differ in the language of the tongue, but they do not differ in the language of the spirit.

16. Read in the same light, then, his unparalleled gallery of life-scenes in "Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth." Read in the same light the death-scene of Count Bezukhoi in "War and Peace;" read the war-scene on the bridge, the wounding of Balkonsky; read the skating-scene in "Anna Karenina," the racing-scene, the meeting between Anna and her darling Seriozha. My friends, in the presence of such art words fail me; I can only cry to you, "Read, read, and read!" Read humbly, read admiringly. The reading of Tolstoy in this spirit shall in itself be unto you an education of your highest artistic sense. And when your souls have become able to be thrilled to their very depths by the unspeakable beauty of Tolstoy's art, you will then learn to be ashamed of thought that for years you sensible folk of Boston have been capable of allowing,--the Stevensons with their Hydes, and the Haggards with their Shes, and even the clumsy Wards with their ponderous Elsmeres, to steal away under the flag of literature your thoughtful moments. You will then learn to understand how it comes to pass that the artistically cold passionless Mr. Howells even, the apostle of heartlessness in art,--however brave and full of heart the noble man be in actual life,--can be struck with awe before the mighty presence of Tolstoy, and how it is possible that the only words he can whisper is, "I cannot say aught!" The preface of Mr. Howells to Tolstoy's "Sebastopol" has been declared by wiseacres to be the symptom of his decadence. My friends, believe it not. This admiration of Mr. Howells for Tolstoy is verily not the symptom that he is beginning to fall, but rather that he is just beginning to rise.

17. I consider this double-faced presentation, this combination of the subjective method with the objective, as the highest in art, because it is the most comprehensive. Not that Tolstoy is incapable of employing the objective method alone with the highest success; when he does employ it he is here second to none, not even to Turgenef. Witness for example the following description of the arrival of a railway-train; still, the essence of Tolstoy's art is the universality with which he grasps whatever comes under his creative impulse.

18. Vronsky, engaged in a conversation, suddenly breaks off. "However," says he, "here is already the train."

"In truth, in the distance was already whistling the engine. In a
few minutes the platform began to tremble, and puffing with steam
driven downward by the frost, in rolled the engine with the
connecting-rod of its centre wheel slowly and rhythmically bending
in and stretching out, and with its bowing, well-muffled,
frost-covered engineer. Behind the tender, ever more slowly, and
shaking the platform still more, the express car came with its
baggage and a howling dog. Lastly, slightly trembling before coming
to a full stop, came up the passenger coaches.

"A smartish, brisk conductor, whistling, before the train came to a
full stop jumped off; and following him began to descend one by one
the impatient passengers,--an officer of the guard with military
bearing and frigid gaze, a smiling, lively small tradesman with a
bag in his hand, and a peasant with a sack over his shoulder."

19. And from the same union of the mighty preacher with the mighty artist springs the second great characteristic of Tolstoy's art, that which in contrast to Turgenef's architectural manner I must call Tolstoy's panoramic manner. I have spoken in the last lecture of Turgenef as the great architect in the art of fiction. Tolstoy is the great panorama painter of fiction. Of architectural regularity there is little to be found in him, but not because he lacks the line sense of proportion of Turgenef, and the sense of beauty of form, but because his art is of a nature in which regularity of progress and rigid outline of form are not required.

20. Tolstoy's masterpieces therefore are panoramas, and his art instinctively seeks that material which easiest lends itself to such purpose. Hence his "Cossaks," hence his "Scenes before Sebastopol," hence his "Nekhludof." But a panorama needs no plot. Hence his "Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth" contains not even a trace of a plot. It is merely a series of pictures, each indeed in itself a thing of unspeakable beauty, but all grouped in such a manner as to give collectively a panorama of the entire growth of a human soul from the moment it ceases to be animal until it becomes man. In a panorama it matters little where each particular group is placed; just as in Kaulbach's "Era of the Reformation" it matters little whether the figure of Luther is on the left or on the right. "War and Peace" is thus like the Battle of Gettysburg, a vast panorama, and "Anna Karenina" is a vast panorama; the one is a panorama of the political life of the State, the other is a panorama of the spiritual life of the individual. But a panorama requires not so much plots as groups; hence "War and Peace" is not one story, but three stories; and each is the story not of one person or of one pair, but of a group of persons, of a group of pairs. And the same necessity we see in "Anna Karenina;" here again Tolstoy's materials are not persons but groups. Viewed as a work of architecture, the book seems to lack form, the author seems to lack the sense of proportion; for the book could be easily split into two different novels,--the novel of Levin and Kitty on the one hand, and the novel of Vronsky and Anna on the other. As works of architecture, neither would suffer if severed from the other. But as a panorama of the unfolding of heaven in the soul of Levin, and of hell in the soul of Anna, the story of Kitty and Levin cannot be read apart from the story of Anna and Vronsky and still remain a unit, and still remain intelligible.