task of presenting
them to others. It is arguable that only in the highest and lowest
expressions of society is unsophisticated nature to be found; and that
Tolstoi, interested less in manners than in men and studious above all of
the elemental qualities of character, has done right to avoid the middle-
class and attach himself to the consideration and the representation of
the highest and the lowest. Certain it is that here have been his
successes. The Prince Andrew of _War and Peace_--cultured, intelligent,
earnest, true lover and true gentleman--is as noble a hero as modern
fiction has achieved; but he is no more interesting as a human being and
no more successful as art than the Marianna of _les Cosaques_, who is a
savage pure and simple, or the Efim of _les Deux Vieillards_, who would
seem to the haughty Radical no better than a common idiot. It is to be
noted of all three--the prince, the savage, and the peasant--that none in
himself is sophisticate nor vile but that each is rich in the common,
simple, elemental qualities of humanity. It is to these and the
manifestations of these that Tolstoi turns for inspiration first of all.
If he chose he could be as keen a satirist and as indefatigable a student
of the meannesses and the minor miseries of existence, the toothaches and
the pimples of experience, as Thackeray. But he does not choose. The
epic note sounds in his work. The eternal issues of life, the
fundamental interests of character and conduct and emotion, are his
material. Love, valour, self-sacrifice, charity, the responsibilities of
being, these and their like are the only vital facts to him; they
constitute the really important part of the scheme of things as he sees
and comprehends it. In their analysis the artist and the mystic meet and
take hands; sometimes to each other's profit, more often, to each other's
hurt. It is not without significance that no other novelist has looked
so closely and penetrated so far into the secret of death: that none has
divined so much of it, nor presented his results with so complete and
intimate a mastery and so persuasive and inspiring a belief. Plainly
Tolstoi has learned 'la vraie signification de la vie'; his faith in its
capacities is immense, his acceptance of its consequences is
unhesitating. He is the great optimist, and his work is wholesome and
encouraging in direct ratio to the vastness of his talent and the
perfection of his method.

Ivan Il