y the big
prodigality of Tolstoy's invention. If a novel could really be as
large as life, Tolstoy could easily fill it; his great masterful reach
never seems near its limit; he is always ready to annex another and
yet another tract of life, he is only restrained by the mere necessity
of bringing a novel somewhere to an end. And then, too, this mighty
command of spaces and masses is only half his power. He spreads
further than any one else, but he also touches the detail of the
scene, the single episode, the fine shade of character, with exquisite
lightness and precision. Nobody surpasses, in some ways nobody
approaches, the easy authority with which he handles the matter
immediately before him at the moment, a roomful of people, the
brilliance of youth, spring sunshine in a forest, a boy on a horse;
whatever his shifting panorama brings into view, he makes of it an
image of beauty and truth that is final, complete, unqualified. Before
the profusion of War and Peace the question of its general form is
scarcely raised. It is enough that such a world should have been
pictured; it is idle to look for proportion and design in a book that
contains a world.

But for this very reason, that there is so much in the book to
distract attention from its form, it is particularly interesting to
ask how it is made. The doubt, the obvious perplexity, is a challenge
to the exploring eye. It may well be that effective composition on
such a scale is impossible, but it is not so easy to say exactly where
Tolstoy fails. If the total effect of his book is inconclusive, it is
all lucidity and shapeliness in its parts. There is no faltering in
his hold upon character; he never loses his way among the scores of
men and women in the book; and in all the endless series of scenes and
events there is not one which betrays a hesitating intention. The
story rolls on and on, and it is long before the reader can begin to
question its direction. Tolstoy _seems_ to know precisely where he is
going, and why; there is nothing at any moment to suggest that he is
not in perfect and serene control of his idea. Only at last, perhaps,
we turn back and wonder what it was. What is the subject of War and
Peace, what is the novel _about_? There is no very ready answer; but
if we are to discover what is wrong with the form, this is the
question to press.

What is the story? There is first of all a succession of phases in the
lives of certain generations; youth th