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. . . . Who

ever 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 Orlov'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 feel

ing 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 Shakespearelovers 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 Pavlovich. 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.

PART II

SCHOOLBOYS AND ART

The following account of Tolstoy's walk with boys from his school at Yásnaya Polyána is taken from Chapter VIII, The Schools, in Aylmer Maude's Life of Tolstoy, Volume 1, (Constable, London). It shows how Tolstoy, for the second time, found himself faced by the question: What is Art? which had arisen when he spoke to the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. . This time it was put to him by a ten-year-old peasant boy, and it then seemed to him that "we said all that can be said about utility and plastic and moral beauty."

THE classes generally finish about eight or nine o'clock (unless carpentering keeps the elder boys somewhat later), and the whole band run shouting into the yard, and there, calling to one another, begin to separate, making for different parts of the village. Occasionally they arrange to coast down-hill to the village in a large sledge that stands outside the gate. They tie up the shafts, throw themselves into it, and squealing, disappear from sight in a cloud of snow, leaving here and there on their path black patches of children who have tumbled out. In the open air, out of school (for all its freedom), new relations are formed between pupil and teacher: freer, simpler and more trustful-those very relations which seem to us the ideal which School should aim at.

Not long ago we read Gógol's story Viy1 in the highest class. The final scenes affected them strongly, and excited their imagination. Some of them played the witch, and kept alluding to the last chapters.

1 The Viy is an Earth-Spirit, and Gógol's tale is gruesome.