It was a sad day for art when this change of spirit came upon Count Tolstoï. Its immediate effect was to suspend the publication of a novel he had begun, to make him despise his master-works, call them empty vanities, and accuse himself of having speculated with the public in arousing evil passions and fanning the fires of sensuality. A heretic and a rationalist (Tolstoï is clearly both; for what he calls his conversion is neither to Catholicism nor to the Greek Church), he now abuses the novel, like some persons nearer home with better intentions than intelligence, as being an incentive to loose actions, the Devil's bait, and agrees with Saint Francis de Sales that "novels are like mushrooms,--the best of them are good for nothing." Tolstoï has not cast aside the pen; he continues to write, but no more such superb pages as we find in "War and Peace" and "Anna Karénina," no more masterly silhouettes of fine society or the high ranks of the military, not the imperial profile of Alexander I. or the charming figure of the Princess Marie; he writes edifying apologies, Biblical parables dedicated to the enlightenment of village-folk; exegeses and religious controversies, professions of faith and dramas for the people. Has the great writer died? Nay, I believe that he still lives and breathes beneath the coarse tunic and rope girdle of the peasant-dress he wears, and which I have seen in his portraits; for in these same books, written with a moral and religious purpose, such as, for instance, that called "What to do?" in which he has endeavored to dispense with elegance and suppress beauty of rhetoric and style, the grace of the artist flows from his pen in spite of him; his descriptions are word-paintings, and the hand of the master is revealed in the admirable conciseness of diction; he controls every resource of art, and is inspired, will-he, nill-he. Tolstoï was right in reminding himself that genius is a divine gift, and there is no law that can annul it or cast it out.
I cannot believe that Count Tolstoï will persevere in his present path. In the first place, I have little confidence in conversion to a rationalist faith; in the second place, from what I have heard of the disposition of the incomparable novelist, I think it impossible that he should long remain stationary and satisfied. In his vigorous, passionate nature imagination has the strongest part; he is enthusiastic, and given to extremes, like Prince Besukof in "War and Peace;" he is like a fiery charger dashing on at full gallop, that leaps and plunges, and stays not even upon the edge of the precipice. To-day, under the influence of an unbridled sentiment of compassion, he is playing the part of redeemer and apostle; he imitates in his proprietary mansion and in the neighboring towns the primitive fraternal customs of the early Christians; he follows the plough and swings the scythe, and waits on himself, rejecting every offer of service and everything that refines life. To-morrow, perhaps, his lofty understanding will tell him that he was not born to make shoes but novels, and he will perhaps regret having thrown away his best years, the prime of life and creative activity.
