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as he gives art any importance, it is only as the organ of
the sound views of life, as the power which elevates the
people on the largest scale.
It is impossible to enter into the spirit of a view of
art which despises the form, the style, even the element
which makes the art an art.
There can, however, be no doubt as to which of the
two constructions is best adapted to advance a literature
which is not on its decadence, but in full prosperity;
that which regards literature as an organ for ideas, or
that which cultivates the form of art simply as form.
The teaching that art is its own end is sound enough,
but must not be understood as sanctioning speaking or
writing only for the sake of speaking and writing. Only
where there are broad views and great thoughts is there
to be found in literature that principle of life which
saves it from being lost in its barrenness.
Therefore the intellectual life of Russia is in no
danger from Tolstoï’s more recent disdain of art.
Why speak of what all know who have in any way
kept up with the times: of the great man’s remorse for
the thoughtless life of his youth, which — as his books
of that epoch show — now appears to him far more
thoughtless than it really was, — of his public confession,
dignified and naïve, the confession of a contemplative
man who was not created for a thinker, — of his self-made
religious system, which adopts the instruction of
Christianity about the unlawfulness of war, nay, of all armed
defence, and in which the principle, that after the blow
on one cheek we ought to turn the other also, becomes
its chief corner-stone. That there are very great
objections to this is more than evident: but what interests
us Is not that, but the genuine Russian character of this
fundamental idea and of this predominant emotion. It
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