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divergence of their estimates of what is good and what is bad did not prevent them from producing works of art; but neither of them could think that all the feelings with which the other infected his readers were desirable. Before considering the matter, people are sometimes apt to resent the idea that ethical standards vary from place to place or from time to time; or, on realizing that such is the fact, they try to think that it is possible for a sane man to cease to approve or disapprove of anything. It does not however need much experience to perceive that men cannot live in the chaos that results when they have no sort of chart or guide by which to steer their course through life. In other words whether a man is a materialist or a spiritualist, and whatever his aspirations may be, he always, more or less consciously and definitely, has what Tolstoy calls "a religious perception."

In an interesting essay on Religion and Morality1 (1894) Tolstoy classified existing "religious perceptions" in three groups: (1) Selfishness-the religion, for instance, of all the babies who desire as much milk and warmth for themselves as possible, and do not care what happens to the rest of the world; (2) Patriotism—the religion of all who make the welfare of their family, clan, group, or nation (or even, as in the case of the Positivists, the whole of humanity) the chief aim of their life; and (3) those who recognize some supreme Lord or Law, whose service transcends any calculable advantage accruing to themselves or to their group.

There is truth in that classification, but one need only admit it, to realize that appreciation of the feelings conveyed by art must differ among us according to whether we adhere to the first, the second, or the third of those groups.

This divergence relating to feelings which are the subjectmatter of art, should not extend to what Tolstoy says about the form of art, or its interrelation with the rest of life. 1 Essays and Letters, "World's Classics" series,

Whatever God one worships can be greatly served by means of art.

In an admirable little article on How to Read the Gospels (1896) 1 Tolstoy says:

1

"To understand Christ's real teaching the chief thing is not to interpret the Gospels, but to understand them as they are written. And therefore, to the question how Christ's teaching should be understood, I reply: If you wish to understand it read the Gospels. Read them, putting aside all foregone conclusions; read them with the sole desire to understand what is said there. But read them considerately, reasonably, and with discernment, and not haphazard or mechanically, as though all the words were of equal weight.

"To understand any book one must choose out the parts that are quite clear, dividing them from what is obscure or confused. And from what is clear we must form our idea of the drift and spirit of the whole work. Then, on the basis of what we have understood, we may proceed to make out what is confused or not quite intelligible. That is how we read all kinds of books.

"Therefore we must first of all separate what is quite simple and intelligible from what is confused and unintelligible and must afterwards read this clear and intelligible part several times over, trying fully to assimilate it. Then, helped by the comprehension of the general meaning, we can try to explain to ourselves the drift of the parts which seemed involved and obscure. That was how I read the Gospels, and the meaning of Christ's teaching became so clear to me that it was impossible to have any doubts about it. And I advise everyone who wishes to understand the true meaning of Christ's teaching to follow the same plan."

This advice, showing how "all kinds of books" should be read, is particularly applicable to the reading of Tolstoy's What is Art? The views there expressed are those of a man born nearly a century ago, who differed widely from ourselves in race, nationality, up-bringing, circumstances, and class, for he was a Russian nobleman of the old régime. That some of his feelings and ideas should differ from our own was inevitable, but the really remarkable thing is that 1 Essays and Letters, "World's Classics" series.

so much of what he says makes us conscious of oneness with him. He was accustomed to express himself strongly, and assumed that those who read his works would wish to understand them and would not desire to twist his meaning. Those who deal with his work in the way he advised can certainly obtain a clear view of the subject, as he understood it. If what he has said is true, in whole or in part, it is desirable to grasp that truth and, even if he be in error, it is desirable to understand his meaning before attempting any refutation.

In What is Art? Tolstoy says:

work which has that of art. . . .

"I have accomplished to the best of my ability this occupied me for fifteen years, on a subject near to me I began to write on art fifteen years ago thinking that when once I undertook the task I should be able to accomplish it without a break. It proved however that my views on the matter were so far from clear that I could not arrange them in a way that satisfied me. From that time I have never ceased to think on the subject, and I have recommenced writing on it six or seven times; but each time, after writing a considerable part of it, I have found myself unable to bring the work to a satisfactory conclusion, and have had to put it aside." (p. 321)

That was written in 1897, and the fifteen years mentioned bring us nearly back to the time when his Confession was written, and the statement indicates that all the earlier essays in this book, while expressing some part of his thought, fail to elucidate the matter as he desired, and it is only in What is Art? that we must look for the final conclusions that solved the matter to his satisfaction.

PART XV

PREFACE TO POLENZ'S NOVEL

"DER BÜTTNERBAUER"

W. VON POLENZ was born in 1861 and died in 1903. His novels, Der Pfarrer von Breitendorf (1893), Der Büttnerbauer (1895), are descriptions of village life. His Grabenhäger, Thekla Lüdekind and Liebe ist ewig (1900) describe the life of the landowning and town classes. Wurzellocker (1902) describes a literary society.

Note by A. M.

"For you will find, if you think deeply of it, that the chief of all the curses of this unhappy age is the universal gabble of its fools, and of the flocks that follow them, rendering the quiet voices of the wise men of all past time inaudible. This is, first, the result of the invention of printing, and of the easy power and extreme pleasure to vain persons of seeing themselves in print. When it took a twelvemonth's hard work to make a single volume legible, men considered a little the difference between one book and another; but now, when not only anybody can get themselves made legible through any quantity of volumes, in a week, but the doing so becomes a means of living to them, and they can fill their stomachs with the foolish foam of their lips, the universal pestilence of falsehood fills the mind of the world as cicadas do olive-leaves, and the first necessity for our mental government is to extricate from among the insectile noise, the few books and words that are Divine."

Ruskin, in Fors Clavigera, Letter 81.

Last year a friend of mine, in whose taste I have confidence, gave me a German novel, Der Büttnerbauer, by von Polenz to read. I read it and was astonished that such a work, which appeared a couple of years ago, was hardly known by anyone.

This novel is not one of those works of imitation-art that are produced in such enormous quantities in our time, but a really artistic production. It is not one of those descriptions of events and of people, destitute of all interest, which are artificially put together merely because the author, having learned the technique of artistic descriptions, wants to write a new novel; nor is it one of those dissertations on a given theme set in the form of a drama or novel, which also in our day pass as artistic productions: nor does it belong to the class of works called "decadent," which particularly please the modern public just because, resembling the ravings of a madman, they present something of the nature of rebuses, the guessing of which forms a pleasant occupation, besides being considered a sign of refinement.

This novel belongs neither to the first, nor to the second, nor to the third, of these categories, but is a real work of art, in which the author says what he feels he must say because he loves what he is speaking about, and says it not by reflections or hazy allegories but in the one manner by which an artistic content can be conveyed, by poetic images, not fantastic extraordinary unintelligible images with no essential inner connexion one with another, but by the presentation of the most ordinary simple persons and events united one with another by an inner artistic necessity.

But not only is this novel a genuine work of art, it is also an admirable work of art, uniting in a high degree all the three chief conditions of really good artistic production.

In the first place, its content is important, relating as it does to the life of the peasantry—that is, to the majority of mankind, who stand at the basis of every social structure and in our day, not only in Germany but in all European countries, are enduring trying alterations of their ancient, agelong condition. (It is remarkable that almost simultaneously with Der Büttnerbauer there has appeared a French

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