Chapter III: Part I: A Survey of Tolstoy’s Essay on Art

Tolstoy’s little volume _What is Art?_ being out of print in England at present, it occurs to me that it may be well, instead of republishing it separately, to do what has not before been done and bring together into a single volume all Tolstoy’s writings on art, especially as some of these which certainly deserve attention, are not included in any of the editions of his works that have been published in England or in America.

Tolstoy’s views on art are often referred to, but seldom correctly presented. In the leading British literary organ, the _Times Literary Supplement_, of 28th April 1921, for instance, two reviewers, dealing with different works, referred to _What is Art?_ and both of them attributed to Tolstoy views he had never either expressed or held. A letter in reply appeared a fortnight later in the same paper, saying:

“Allow me to point out to the reviewer of Mr. Joad’s
_Common-Sense Ethics_ that Tolstoy never ‘came to the
conclusion that the word beauty means nothing and is useless.’
On the contrary, _What is Art?_ furnishes evidence--were
evidence needed--that Tolstoy knew the meaning of the word and
found it useful. For instance, he says: ‘I fear it will be
urged against me that having denied that _the conception of
beauty can supply a standard_ for works of art, I contradict
myself by acknowledging ornaments to be works of art. The
reproach is unjust, for the subject-matter of all kinds
of ornamentation consists not in the beauty, but in the
_feeling_ (of admiration of and delight in the combination
of lines and colours) which the artist has experienced and
with which he infects the spectator. Art remains what it was
and what it must be: nothing but the infection by one man of
another, or of others, with the _feelings_ experienced by the
infector. Among these feelings is the feeling of delight at
what pleases the sight’....

“Here and elsewhere in the same book he understands and
approves of beauty, and he uses the word, as in a passage in
which he denounces exclusive art produced for a select circle
as having ‘lost its beauty,’ but he is careful _not to base
his definition of art_ on the use of the word beauty, because
that would merely substitute one problem for another, since
there is as much vagueness in the use of the word ‘beauty’ as
in that of the word ‘art.’ ‘There is no objective definition
of beauty.’ Tolstoy required a clear workable definition, and
found one which meets the case.

“The reviewer of Mr. Hind’s _Art and I_ says: ‘Tolstoy
held that a Russian peasant, just because he was a Russian
peasant, was a born judge of art.’ This is again a flagrant
misrepresentation. What Tolstoy says is that the highest
art has been understood by simple _unperverted peasant
labourers_; there is no special claim made on behalf of
Russians. He instances the poems of Homer, admitted to be
very great art yet eagerly listened to by ‘men of those times
who were even less educated than our labourers.’ Tolstoy’s
argument is, that a perverted education may sterilize man’s
capacity to enjoy art, but that an unperverted man naturally
possesses ‘that simple feeling familiar to the plainest man
and even to a child, that sense of infection with another’s
feeling--compelling us to joy in another’s gladness, to sorrow
at another’s grief, and to mingle souls with another--which is
the very essence of art.’”

It would be easy to multiply instances both of the attention paid to Tolstoy’s views and of the misrepresentation of them that is still common, but the above will suffice for the present purpose.

Something happened at the time of the first appearance of _What is Art?_ which hindered the due understanding of it. Among his many reformist activities, Tolstoy wished to see the business of publishing set on a new basis, and he assumed that it would be easy to improve on the methods employed by the best existing publishers. Desiring no profit from his works, he was inclined to encourage the publishing experiments of people who professed agreement with his social and religious views; and it happened that _What is Art?_ was completed just at the time when a small and impecunious group calling itself The Brotherhood Publishing Co. had started business in London, to propagate Tolstoyan views. At his wish and at that of his friend Tchertkoff this Brotherhood Publishing Co. was entrusted with the first publication of the version of _What is Art?_ which I had made from Tolstoy’s manuscript chapter by chapter in consultation with him as he wrote. It thus happened that the manager of the Brotherhood Publishing Co. received the work before anyone in France and, without asking permission, supplied to a Paris periodical the chapters in which French writers and painters of the day were drastically dealt with. The publication of this detached portion of the book apart from the chapters disclosing his general argument was much regretted by Tolstoy. It had the appearance of a wilful and unprovoked attack on a number of distinguished individuals and evoked great indignation; so that when, shortly afterwards, the book itself appeared in France, it was at once met by a storm of invective and denunciation.

Now in those days French criticism led the literary world of Europe and America, especially in regard to Russian literature, and in face of this storm only certain of the most independent English critics ventured to trust their own judgment and to testify to the value and importance of Tolstoy’s work.

During the quarter of a century that has passed since then his views have so far penetrated the public mind that some of them are already becoming commonplaces, but there are many indications that his message is still far from being completely understood.

It may be of interest to see how Tolstoy’s opinions on art grew and developed. At the age of thirty, in February, 1858, he joined the Moscow Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, and delivered a lecture on “The Supremacy of the Artistic Element in Literature.” It was never published, and has now been lost. From the record that remains, it would seem that he argued that art should treat of what is always beautiful and of what is as unalterable as the fundamental laws of the soul, and that he condemned the utilization of art for the indictment of particular social evils in one’s own age and country. Many literary men in Russia were then much concerned about the emancipation of the serfs, and Tolstoy seems to have suggested that they were making art a tool, and failing to employ it in the loftiest way. He had evidently far to travel before reaching his ultimate conclusions.

In the winter of 1861, when absorbed in the school he had started for peasant children at Yásnaya Polyána, he went for a walk late one evening with some lads of ten or twelve years of age. Their talk turned on singing, drawing, and art in general. Tolstoy’s account of this walk will be found in the next chapter. He says: “We began to speak of the fact that not everything exists for use, but that there is also beauty, and that art is beauty, and we understood one another, and Fedka quite understood what singing is for. It feels strange to repeat what we said then, but it seems to me that we said all that can be said about utility, and plastic and moral beauty.”

In another article of that period he speaks of his amazement at finding that these young peasant boys, when relieved of the technical and mechanical difficulties of writing by having it done for them, could compose stories showing high artistic feeling.

After many experiments he found that the most efficacious way of stimulating these boys was to suggest to them interesting themes: for instance, that they should write short stories to illustrate popular proverbs. When they became interested in framing these stories, it was not in the first instance they who had to do the actual writing, but Tolstoy who wrote at their dictation. In this way their eagerness and their creative faculty were not checked, and it was possible quickly to point out to them wherein the real difficulties of authorship lie. The real difficulty, to anyone possessed of imagination and an active mind, is to select from all the thoughts that suggest themselves those which are really most essential to the story, to avoid repetition, and to maintain a due proportion between the various parts. As soon as the boys found that they really could compose stories which interested other people (and a talented child is able to do this almost from the first if he is judiciously advised and his exuberances checked) they naturally became intensely eager to master the mechanical difficulties, especially as Tolstoy was careful not to annoy them by injudicious remarks about the tidiness of their copybooks, the quality of their penmanship, or mere grammatical errors. A mastery of these things can best be acquired through the boy’s desire to avoid absurdity and to be intelligible. Tolstoy found that it merely annoys boys to be told that a certain mistake infringes a rule of grammar. They care nothing about grammar--they detest it. But if you put the thing another way round, and point out to a child that what he has said is unintelligible, or is open to misconstruction, or is not the best way of saying the thing, he understands the common sense of that, and learns his grammar or orthography in order to reach the result he desires.

Similarly with all the sciences. Things that the schoolbooks and the pedagogues often begin with, dry classifications and unknown words, have the effect of repelling a boy and making him withdraw into his shell as a tortoise does at the approach of danger. The proper way, Tolstoy says, is to begin with things the child can verify by his own observation, and in which he can be expected to take an intelligent interest. When he already possesses an accumulation of facts which to him are real and interesting, he may be glad enough to accept classification and terminology, to enable him to sort out his facts and deal with them more easily.

With music also this is true. Tolstoy achieved remarkable success by avoiding the usual pedantry and compulsion, not obliging any boy to work at it who did not like it, and helping the pupils to get quickly at the real art of the thing in its simplest forms.

Convinced of the artistic capacity of these lads Tolstoy declared:

“I think the need to enjoy art and to serve art is inherent
in every human being whatever race or class he may belong to,
and that this need has its rights and should be satisfied.
Taking that position as an axiom, I say that, if the enjoyment
and production of art by every one presents inconveniences
and inconsistencies, the reason lies in the character and
direction art has taken: about which we must be on our guard
lest we foist anything false on the rising generation and lest
we prevent it from producing something new both in form and
matter.”

He was much troubled by the lack of good books for the people, and wrote: “Let us print good books for the people.... How simple and easy it seems, like all great thoughts! There is only one obstacle, namely, that there exist no good books for the people either here or in Europe. To print such books they must first be produced, and none of our philanthropists think of undertaking _that_ line of work.”

This was in 1862. Twenty years later Tolstoy set himself to the task he saw to be so necessary, and wrote that delightful series of short and simple stories for the people, which are collected in the volume of _Twenty-Three Tales_.[1] He also published a short play called _The First Distiller_, adapted for performance at any country fair or by any workers’ group, and among his posthumous plays there is another of similar character, _The Cause of It All_. They are both included in the volume of his _Plays_ issued in _The World’s Classics_ series.

It is of course harder to produce work which shall really convey a feeling to a wide audience than it is for a writer to restrict himself to a circle who have undergone the same training, culture, and social experience, as himself. To reach the wide mass of humanity the artist, in addition to real sincerity, must have the qualities of brevity and simplicity, as one sees them exemplified in the Gospel parables, the Old Testament stories, popular folk tales, the old ballads, and in a lesser degree in such modern works as Dickens’ _The Christmas Carol_. But if the achievement be difficult, its social importance is immensely great, and nothing in modern literature in this direction has been more successful than Tolstoy’s stories in _Twenty-Three Tales_. They have made their way into all languages and have been welcomed everywhere by young and old, learned and simple alike.

Curiously enough, the Oxford University Press edition of Tolstoy’s works, the aim of which is to give English-speaking readers a more readable, reliable, authoritative, and complete, rendering of Tolstoy’s works than had previously been produced, originated from Tolstoy’s efforts to provide good literature for the Russian people. When the late W. T. Stead visited him at Yásnaya Polyána they discussed the possibility of providing popular editions of the best literature at a cheap price. Tolstoy spoke of what was being done in that direction under his auspices in Moscow. And Stead after his return to England issued a series of penny booklets containing summaries of the best books. This plan aimed too high, and was not permanently successful; but Grant Richards, who was one of Stead’s assistants at the time, saw the possibilities in the idea and, after starting his own business, brought out the _World’s Classics_ series, well-printed and well-bound at a very moderate price. One of the volumes he issued was _Essays and Letters_ by Tolstoy. The book met with Tolstoy’s cordial approval, and of the rendering he wrote me: “Your translations are very good because, besides having excellent command of both languages, you also love the thoughts you transmit; this gives me great pleasure.” Henry Frowde, who was the London representative of the Oxford University Press, took over the series when Grant Richards failed, and continued it. _Twenty-Three Tales_ was the next Tolstoy volume that was added, and others followed. What distinguishes the _World Classics_ among other series of inexpensive books is the care devoted to the editing and to the quality of the versions produced. In this respect it claims to be far ahead of any other edition of Tolstoy’s works.

Tolstoy’s marriage and the production of _War and Peace_,[2] _Anna Karénina_[2] and the _First Russian Reading Books_ occupied him for twenty years, during which he wrote little about the philosophy of art, though references to art in his novels and stories indicate that its influence on life always occupied his mind. He had previously in _Lucern_ (1857) described an itinerant Swiss musician and expressed indignation that the wealthy tourists who enjoyed that musician’s art failed to contribute to his needs. A year later, in _Albert_, he described a drunken but talented violinist he met in Petersburg. In actual life he took Rudolph (the prototype of Albert) to Yásnaya Polyána, and there studied music with him.

In _War and Peace_[2] there is a striking passage dealing with the effect of Natasha’s singing on Nicholas, when he returns home in despair after heavy losses at cards (ch. 15, Book IV, pp. 434–5).

Later, in 1879, in his very interesting _Confession_,[2] in the course of a scathing denunciation of the life of the social circles to which he belonged he says:

“During that time I began to write from vanity, covetousness,
and pride. In my writings I did the same as in my life. To
get fame and money, for the sake of which I wrote, it was
necessary to hide the good and to display the evil. And I did
so. How often in my writings I contrived to hide under the
guise of indifference, or even of banter, those strivings
towards goodness which gave meaning to my life! And I
succeeded in this and was praised.

“At twenty-six years of age I returned to Petersburg after the
war and met the writers. They received me as one of themselves
and flattered me. And before I had time to look round I had
adopted the views on life of the set of authors I had come
among, and these views completely obliterated all my former
strivings to improve. Those views furnished a theory which
justified the dissoluteness of my life.

“The view of life of these people, my comrades in authorship,
consisted in this: that life in general goes on developing,
and in this development we--men of thought--have the chief
part; and among men of thought it is we--artists and
poets[3]--who have the greatest influence. Our vocation is to
teach mankind. And lest the simple question should suggest
itself: what do I know and what can I teach? it was explained
in this theory that this need not be known, and that the
artist and poet teach unconsciously. I was considered an
admirable artist and poet, and therefore it was very natural
for me to adopt this theory. I, artist and poet, wrote and
taught, without myself knowing what. For this I was paid
money; I had excellent food, lodging, women, and society, and
I had fame; which showed that what I taught was very good.

“This faith in the meaning of poetry and in the development
of life was a religion, and I was one of its priests. To be
its priest was very pleasant and profitable. And I lived a
considerable time in this faith without doubting its validity.
But in the second, and especially in the third year of this
life, I began to doubt the infallibility of this religion
and to examine it. My first cause of doubt was that I began
to notice that the priests of this religion were not all in
accord among themselves. Some said: we are the best and most
useful teachers; we teach what is needed but the others teach
wrongly. Others said: No! we are the real teachers and _you_
teach wrongly. And they disputed, quarrelled, abused, cheated,
and tricked one another. There were also many among us who did
not care who was right and who was wrong, but were simply bent
on attaining their covetous aims by means of this activity of
ours. All this obliged me to doubt the validity of our creed.

“Moreover, having begun to doubt the truth of the authors’
creed itself, I also began to observe its priests more
attentively, and I became convinced that almost all the
priests of that religion, the writers, were immoral, and for
the most part men of bad worthless character, much inferior
to those whom I had met in my former dissipated and military
life; but they were self-confident and self-satisfied as
only those can be who are quite holy or who do not know what
holiness is. These people revolted me, and I realized that
that faith was a fraud.

“But strange to say, though I understood this fraud and
renounced it, yet I did not renounce the rank these people
gave me: the rank of artist, poet and teacher. I naïvely
imagined that I was a poet and artist and could teach
everybody without myself knowing what I was teaching, and I
acted accordingly.

“From my intimacy with these men I acquired a new vice:
abnormally developed pride, and an insane assurance that it
was my vocation to teach men, without knowing what.

“To remember that time and my own state of mind and that of
those men (though there are thousands like them to-day) is sad
and terrible and ludicrous, and arouses exactly the feeling
one experiences in a lunatic asylum.

“We were all then convinced that it was necessary for us to
speak, write, and print, as quickly as possible, and that it
was all wanted for the good of humanity. And thousands of
us, contradicting and abusing one another, all printed and
wrote--teaching others. And without remarking that we knew
nothing, and that to the simplest of life’s questions: What
is good and what is evil? we did not know how to reply, we
all, not listening to one another, talked at the same time,
sometimes backing and praising one another in order to be
backed and praised in turn, sometimes getting angry with one
another--just as in a lunatic asylum.

“Thousands of workmen laboured to the extreme limit of their
strength day and night, setting the type and printing millions
of words which the post carried all over Russia, and we still
went on teaching, and could in no way find time to teach
enough, and were always angry that sufficient attention was
not paid us.

“It was terribly strange, but it is now quite comprehensible.
Our real innermost concern was to get as much money and
praise as possible. To gain that end we could do nothing
except write books and papers. So we did that. But in order
to do such useless work and to feel assured that we were
very important people we required a theory justifying our
activity. And so among us this theory was devised: ‘All that
exists is reasonable. All that exists develops. And it all
develops by means of culture. And culture is measured by the
circulation of books and newspapers. And we are paid money
and are respected because we write books and newspapers, and
therefore we are the most useful and the best of men.’ This
theory would have been all very well if we had been unanimous,
but as every thought expressed by one of us was met by a
diametrically opposed thought expressed by another, we ought
to have been driven to reflection. But we ignored this; people
paid us money, and those on our side praised us; so each of us
considered himself justified.

“It is now clear to me that this was just as in a lunatic
asylum; but then I only dimly suspected this, and, like all
lunatics, simply called all men lunatics except myself.”

And further on he says:

“Art, poetry?... Under the influence of success and the praise
of men I had long assured myself that this was a thing one
could do though death was drawing near--death which destroys
all things, including my work and its remembrance; but soon
I saw that that too was a fraud. It was plain to me that art
was an adornment of life, an allurement to life. But life had
lost its attraction for me; so how could I attract others?
As long as I was not living my own life but was borne on the
waves of some other life--as long as I believed that life had
a meaning, though one I could not express--the reflection of
life in poetry and art of all kinds afforded me pleasure: it
was pleasant to look at life in the mirror of art. But when
I began to seek the meaning of life, and felt the necessity
of living my own life, that mirror became for me unnecessary,
superfluous, ridiculous, or painful. I could no longer soothe
myself with what I now saw in the mirror, namely, that my
position was stupid and desperate. It was all very well to
enjoy the sight when in the depth of my soul I believed that
my life had a meaning. Then the play of lights--comic, tragic,
touching, beautiful, and terrible--in life amused me. But when
I knew life to be meaningless and terrible, the play in the
mirror could no longer amuse me.”

But it is plain that in his _Confession_ Tolstoy is not primarily concerned with the philosophy of art. He introduces it only as part of his scathing indictment of the life of the well-to-do classes.

Similarly in _What Then Must We Do?_ (1884) his terrific indictment of modern civilisation includes frequent reference to art and science, but there is no separate discussion of art, and his main point is that, if art is as necessary and beneficial to man as is generally supposed, a civilization is morally indefensible that practically excludes the mass of the people from its enjoyment--including those who spend their whole lives in printing books, building theatres, libraries, and picture galleries, making paints and canvas for artists, or providing food, clothing, shelter, fuel and conveyance, for all who devote themselves to art. If the labourer produces material food that the artist consents to consume, the artist should in common fairness produce mental and spiritual food adapted for the labourer’s consumption. But we, says Tolstoy, consume what the labourer produces for us and then write books, sonnets, and sonatas, not for him but for one another, dishonestly leaving his mental needs unsatisfied. That indictment, powerful as it is, is a thing apart from Tolstoy’s elucidation of the philosophy of art, and finds its place better in _What Then Must We Do?_ (which is due to appear shortly in the _World’s Classics_ series) than in this volume.

In 1889 appeared _The Kreutzer Sonata_,[4] containing some striking references to music.

The opinions there expressed are put into the mouth of Pózdnyshev, a man mentally unbalanced, who has killed his wife without any convincing proof that his jealousy was well-grounded. Tolstoy makes Pózdnyshev’s abnormality quite clear. He is described as terribly nervous and excitable, “with unnaturally glittering eyes which kept rapidly moving from one object to another.” Pózdnyshev says that he was “on the very point of suicide”; remarks that “you can drive me to madness. I cannot answer for myself.” We are told of “the mad animal jealousy in him.” And he says, “I could not have said what it was I wanted. It was downright madness!”

His whole way of expressing himself is extreme, and granting that Tolstoy uses him to express in exaggerated form views he himself arrived at while writing the book, we have no right to add anything to such emphatic utterances.

What then does this Pózdnyshev say? He says:

“One of the most distressing conditions of life for a
jealous man (and every one is jealous in our world) are
certain society conventions which allow a man and woman the
greatest and most dangerous proximity. You would become a
laughing-stock to others if you tried to prevent such nearness
at balls, or the nearness of doctors to their women-patients,
or of people occupied with art, sculpture, or especially
music. A couple are occupied with the noblest of arts,
music; this demands a certain nearness, and there is nothing
reprehensible in that, and only a stupid jealous husband can
see anything undesirable in it. Yet everybody knows that it is
by means of those very pursuits, especially of music, that the
greater part of the adulteries in our society occur....”

In another passage he continues his narration:

“The dinner was, as dinners are, dull and pretentious. The
music began pretty early. Oh, how I remember every detail
of that evening! I remember how he brought in his violin,
unlocked the case, took off a cover a lady had embroidered
for him, drew out the violin, and began tuning it. I remember
how my wife sat down with pretended unconcern, under which I
saw that she was trying to conceal great timidity--chiefly
as to her own ability--sat down at the piano, and then the
usual a on the piano began, the pizzicato of the violin,
and the arrangement of the music. Then I remember how they
glanced at one another, turned to look at the audience who
were seating themselves, said something to one another and
began. He took the first chords. His face grew serious, stern,
and sympathetic, and listening to the sounds he produced, he
touched the strings with careful fingers. The piano answered
him. The music began....

“They played Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. Do you know the
first presto? You do? Ugh! Ugh! It is a terrible thing, that
sonata. And especially that part. And in general music is a
dreadful thing! What is it? I don’t understand. What is music?
What does it do? And why does it do what it does? They say
music exalts the soul. Nonsense, it is not true! It has an
effect, an awful effect--I am speaking of myself--but not of
an exalting kind. _It has neither an exalting nor a debasing
effect, but it produces agitation._ How can I put it? Music
makes me forget myself, my real position; it transports me
to some other position, not my own. Under the influence of
music it seems to me that I feel what I do not really feel,
that I understand what I do not understand, that I can do what
I cannot do. I explain it by the fact that music acts like
yawning, like laughter: I am not sleepy, but I yawn when I see
some one yawning; there is nothing for me to laugh at, but I
laugh when I hear people laughing.

“Music carries me immediately and directly into the mental
condition in which the man was who composed it. My soul merges
with his and together with him I pass from one condition into
another; but why this happens, I don’t know. You see, he who
wrote, let us say, the Kreutzer Sonata--Beethoven--knew of
course why he was in that condition; that condition caused
him to do certain actions, and therefore that condition had a
meaning for him, but for me--none at all. That is why music
only agitates and doesn’t lead to a conclusion. Well, when
a military march is played, the soldiers step to the music
and the music has achieved its object. A dance is played, I
dance, and the music has achieved its object. Mass has been
sung, I receive Communion, and that music too has reached a
conclusion. Otherwise it is only agitating, and what ought
to be done in that agitation is lacking. That is why music
sometimes acts so dreadfully, so terribly. In China, music is
a State affair. And that is as it should be. How can one allow
anyone who pleases to hypnotize another, or many others, and
do what he likes with them. And especially that this hypnotist
should be the first immoral man who turns up?

“It is a terrible instrument in the hands of any chance user!
Take that Kreutzer Sonata, for instance, how can that first
presto be played in a drawing-room among ladies in low-necked
dresses? To hear that played, to clap a little, and then to
eat ices and talk of the latest scandal? Such things should
only be played on certain important significant occasions,
and then only when certain actions answering to such music are
wanted; play it then and do what the music has moved you to.
Otherwise an awakening of energy and feeling unsuited both to
the time and the place, to which no outlet is given, cannot
but act harmfully. At any rate on me that piece had an awful
effect; it was as if quite new feelings, new possibilities, of
which I had till then been unaware, had been revealed to me.
‘That’s how it is: not at all as I used to think and live, but
that way,’ something seemed to say within me. What this new
thing was that had been revealed to me, I could not explain
to myself, but the consciousness of this new condition was
very joyous. All those same people, including my wife and him,
appeared in a new light.

“After that allegro they played the beautiful, but common and
unoriginal, andante with trite variations, and the very weak
finale. Then, at the request of the visitors, they played
Ernst’s Elegy and a few small pieces. They were all good,
but they did not produce on me one-hundredth part of the
impression the first piece had. The effect of the first piece
formed the background for them all.

“I felt lighthearted and cheerful the whole evening. I had
never seen my wife as she was that evening. Those shining
eyes, that severe, significant expression while she played,
and her melting languor and feeble, pathetic, and blissful
smile after they had finished. I saw all that, but did not
attribute any meaning to it except that she was feeling what
I felt, and that to her as to me new feelings, never before
experienced, were revealed or, as it were, recalled. The
evening ended satisfactorily and the visitors departed.”

Subsequently Pózdnyshev says:

“Only then did I remember their faces that evening when, after
the Kreutzer Sonata, they played some impassioned little
piece, I don’t remember by whom impassioned to the point of
obscenity.”

These allusions of Pózdnyshev to music have frequently been misrepresented, owing no doubt to the title of the story. But anyone who reads it carefully will see that he does not attribute any dissolute influence to the _Kreutzer Sonata_. He expressly says that it was some little piece by a composer whose name he does not remember which was “sensual to the point of obscenity.” Of the _Kreutzer Sonata_, and of music generally, what he says is that it can have a “terrible” influence, because it lifts a man out of his ordinary condition and arouses emotions which upset his balance and expose him to various influences, which, amid certain surroundings, may be bad.

It is an instance of the thoughtlessness with which works of fiction are often read, that these utterances attributed to Pózdnyshev have been taken as an indication that Tolstoy himself regarded Beethoven’s _Kreutzer Sonata_ as an immoral work! One should compare Pózdnyshev’s utterances with what Tolstoy had said in _War and Peace_, when Nicholas Rostov felt his whole mood altered by his sister’s singing, and ceased to despair or for a time even to feel his losses. Music in both cases lifted people out of their customary or accidental mood, and released energies which might flow in different directions according to circumstances.

“Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that
was best in Rostov’s soul! And this something was apart from
everything else in the world. What were losses and Dólokhov
and words of honour?... All nonsense! One might kill and rob
and yet be happy!”

To see more clearly what was Tolstoy’s considered opinions about music, one must turn to _What is Art?_ p. 287:

“Sometimes people who are together, if not hostile to one
another, are at least estranged in mood and feeling, till
perhaps a story, a performance, a picture ... but oftenest of
all music, unites them all as by an electric flash, and in
place of their former isolation and even enmity, they are all
conscious of union and mutual love. Each is glad that another
feels what he feels; glad of the communion established not
only between him and all present, but also with all now living
who will yet share the same impression; and more than that, he
feels the mysterious gladness of a communion which, reaching
beyond the grave, unites us with all men of the past who have
been moved by the same feelings and with all men of the future
who will yet be touched by them.”

That passage effectually disposes of the suggestion that Tolstoy regarded the normal effects of music as harmful.

Tolstoy felt that all art, by its power to sway man’s feelings, contains much that is dangerous and terrible as well as much that is necessary and ennobling, but one cannot read _What is Art?_ without recognizing how strongly he felt the beneficial effect music may have.

Besides these references in his novels and stories before he had fully cleared the matter up in his own mind and had expressed it in _What is Art?_ Tolstoy dealt with various aspects of the matter, more particularly from the ethical side, in a series of articles, most of which aimed at drawing attention to stories or pictures of which he specially approved. Among the earliest of these were a note to accompany a reproduction of his friend Gay’s picture, _The Last Supper_,--a very simple account of the incident depicted, and an article _On Truth in Art_, which served as preface to a book intended for children; these were followed by an important and discriminating preface to Guy de Maupassant’s works which greatly interested Tolstoy, and by an appreciative preface to Semënov’s Peasant Stories. After these came an essay _On Art_, in which Tolstoy attempted to deal with the general philosophy of the matter, but he was dissatisfied with this attempt and withheld it from publication till the matter had completely cleared itself up in his mind, and he had expressed it in _What is Art?_ in a way that seemed to him adequate.

When _What is Art?_ appeared, Bernard Shaw wrote: “This book is a most effective booby trap. It is written with so utter a contempt for the objections which the routine critic is sure to allege against it that many a dilettantist reviewer has already accepted it as a butt set up by Providence.... Whoever is really conversant with art recognizes in it the voice of the master.” And Mr. A. B. Walkley said: “This calmly and cogently reasoned effort to put art on a new basis is a literary event of the first importance.” Now the “booby trap” of which Shaw speaks can be tried in this way. Induce some friend--preferably one interested in art, or who has preconceived opinions on the subject,--to read Tolstoy’s book, and if you find that on reading it he concentrates on the dross he can find in it and devotes himself to points and examples he can disagree with, while remaining blind to the gold it contains, you have caught your booby! For there is much gold to be found in it, and the gold is more valuable than the dross.

Before that (in 1893) he had published a preface to a translation of extracts from Amiel’s _Journal_. Later he wrote prefaces to a Russian translation of W. von Polenz’s German novel, _Der Büttnerbauer_ (in 1902), and to Chékhov’s story, _Darling_ (in 1905), and notes to reproductions of _Orlóv’s Pictures of Peasant Life_ (in 1909).

Besides these, in his last years, he wrote his highly controversial article _On Shakespeare_, in 1906, of which one may say that, though he read English with facility, Tolstoy was not so at home in our language that he could be “enchanted by the mere word music that makes Shakespeare so irresistible in English,” to borrow a phrase from Bernard Shaw. But Tolstoy’s experience as a dramatist caused him to acknowledge that “the movement of feeling, its increase, alteration, and the combination of many contradictory feelings, are often expressed truly and strongly in some of Shakespeare’s scenes. And when performed by good actors this evokes, at least for a time, sympathy with the characters presented. Shakespeare, himself an actor and a clever man, knew how to express not by speech only but by exclamations, gestures, and the repetition of words, the spiritual conditions and variations of feeling that occur in the characters he presents in his plays. So, for instance, in many places Shakespeare’s characters, instead of uttering words, only exclaim or weep, or in the middle of a monologue often show by a gesture the strain of their position (as when Lear says ‘Pray you undo this button’), or in a moment of strong emotion they repeat a question, and cause a word that has struck them to be repeated, as is done by Othello, Macduff, Cleopatra, and others. Similar clever methods of revealing the movements of feeling, furnishing good actors with opportunities of showing their powers, have often been mistaken, and are mistaken, by many critics for the presentation of character.”

Apart from this practical mastery of stage-craft, which gives actors and actresses such great opportunities, Tolstoy denies the claims usually made on behalf of Shakespeare as a thinker or a faithful presenter of characters true to life. He gives reasons, examples, and instances, for his opinion, and if he is in error it should not be difficult for Shakespeare-lovers to furnish as closely reasoned a reply. All that need here be said is that, knowing what a strongly established opinion he was challenging, he perhaps emphasised his statement the more--for moderation was never a characteristic of his.

There is some indication that he was conscious of another side of the case, for once, when his friend, A. P. Chékhov, came to see him when he was ill in bed, he pressed the latter’s hand at parting and said, “Good-bye, Anton Pávlovich. You know how fond I am of you, and how I detest Shakespeare. Still, he did write plays better than you do.”

_A Talk on the Drama_ has been added, which is taken from I. Tenerómo’s _Life and Talks of L. N. Tolstoy_ (St. Petersburg, undated, but _c._ 1907). This bears many signs of authenticity, corresponds with what one knows of Tolstoy’s views, and seems sufficiently interesting to justify its inclusion.

In an Appendix is given a translation of Chékhov’s _Darling_, that readers of Tolstoy’s preface to that work may see what he was writing about.