THE HESPERIAN.
V
!
ill
r;
M
t
utility, ami illustrates by saying that "the carpenter turns in
to an architect, when the human mind outgrows its wigwam
or cabin."
The aesthetic school 1ms been criticised for placing too high
an estimate on its own view of life for making a fetich out of
the beautiful. Doubtless there are extremists here as else
where. The cultivation of the sense of beauty is not the end
of existence. It is rather an embellishment of Hie, but is one
of those features which makes life worth living. There is a
painful contrast between the mind in w hich this faculty has
ever lain dormant and one in which it has been fully devel
oped. Each is like a landscape the one overgrown with nox
ious weeds the other radiant with rare foliage.
REVIEWS
War ana Peace, by Lcof Tolstoi; Part I.; translated from
he French version of the Original: N.Y.; V. S. Gottsberg
er and Harper and Urothcrs.
Count Lcof Tolstoi, the Russian novelist, is regarded in con.
linental circles as the strongest writer now living, and in his
department of literature, the greatest genius of the century.
Among possible rivals may be named only Tolstoi's country
man, Turgcneff, who counted himself far inferior, Gusiavc
Flaubert in France, Edmondo DeAmicis in Italy, Carlylc and
George Eliot in England. But Carlyle's factitious frcnzyt
Geonjc Eliot's profound motive searching, Flaubert's elabo
rate and florid word-painting, and tDe Amicis's splendid de
scription are summed up and embodied, and without the least
strain or effort, in Tolstoi's grand volumes. Often careless
and unfinished in petty details, his work is on the whole mag
nificent and unapproachable in completeness of grasp and view
and affords a rare illustration of how vast powers of mind can
command, without tedious mastery of technical process 'aud
method, all those avenues of approach to the mind of another
w hich wc call Art.
Something leas than two years ago the first knowlegc of Tol
stoi reached the American public through the pages of the Re.
vuedes Deu-x Mondes. The article in question was partly bio
graphical, partly critical, and was confined for the most part
to the War and Peace, which had just appeared in a French
translation. Shortly after followed Ama Karenine, and My
Religion, the last-named a record of the religious experi.
ences and theorizing of the author. Tolstoi, once one of the
most worldly of worldly men, a military and social as well as
literary leader, has worked out afresh, the problem of mo
and social order and proposes a new foundation of society.
1 his foundation is built of nothing less than a literal interpre
tation of lheSermoit on the Mount, and Tolstoi virtually pro
poses to establish a sort of religious communism. Obedient
to his own theory, Tolstoi has abandoned his estates and
learned a trade that of shoeraaking; while his titled friends,
to excuse the unconventional procedure, have reported him
insane. Hut Tolstoi's brain is as sound and vigorous as ever,
and Mill yet be heard from in literature. Meanwhile it is of
good promise for America that this man's bonks, until recent
ly unknown except in Russia, have been so speedily appropri
ated by our publishers, while no one one of them seems to
have been yet touched in England.
The War and Peace is an historic novel of the Napoleonic
wars; but it is something more than the study of a political
and social era, and contains much that belongs to no age or
time. Being historical, it is less realistic than Anna Kerenine,
but is far more powerful. It is unfortunate that only the first
of the three parts or volumes is yet available, though as we
write we hear of the appearance of the second. Perhaps on
the whole the Franklin Square edition of the Haqers is the
better, as it costs far less, and the three parts can be bound in
one when the whole is published.
The Atlantic Monthly for May contains an interesting arti
cle by E. P. Evans on the "Aryan Homestead." Not long
since Philologists regarded it as a settled fact that the original
scat of the Indo-European race was in Asia. But of late years
there has been a grow ing dissension from this view. The
present article maintains that the Asiatic theory has little real
foundation, and that strong evidence points to Europe as hav
ing been inhabited earlier by branches of the Aryan family.
The author, however, docs not so much aim to offer a posi
tive opinion as to disprove the older theory. For students of
Philology, History, and even of the Natural Sciences, the ar
ticle is well w orth reading.
In a late number of the JVezo Princeton Review James Rus
sell I .o well discusses the poet Gray. It is seldom that the
reading public is afforded more excellent opportunity to learn
ihe estimate of one great master of literature by another, and
that too when such a feature as contemporary jealousy can
have no weight. The article claims for eighteenth century
literature a higher place than is usually awarded it. As for
Gray, the author thinks that his genius consisted not so much
in originating as in remodeling and "idealizing" what came to
him from others. Some interesting features are noticed in
connection with Gray's works, among them an omitted stan
za from the" Elegy." The article is of special interest to lit
crary students. Lowell's name is in itself a guarantee of
this.
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girl take her some of
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'
