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fairly-tales composed for peasants become favorites with every one. The thinker forces the artist to give up painting, to drop the brush, to pick up the pen, and to become a philosophical writer. At this point the spirit of disintegration passes from his person into his theories, and finally into the opinions of those who were so unanimous in their judgment of the artist. In a few words, Tolstoi's teachings may be summed up as follows: their basis is non-resistance to evil; their dogma, the perniciousness of civilization as the result of collectivity; their practical prescription, the dissolution of society to the benefit of the individual. We will not pause to consider the good side of his preaching which, in the main, can be reduced to a campaign against human insincerity in all its manifestations-the author pleads his cause well enough himself. We will rather follow up its defects, and even not so much the intrinsic defects of the teaching as the defective side of its influ

ence.

The real followers of Tolstoi, the regular "Tolstoi-ists," are not numerous; they are people worthy of all esteem for carrying out within the limits of - possibility the prescription of abdicating superfluity, though the line is always somewhat hard to draw between that which is really necessary, and that which only seems so. The count himself, at his country-place, gives rather strange examples of practical application. The author of "Anna Karenina" plunges his hands into clay, and builds stoves which afterwards are rebuilt by regular stove builders. Every day he takes an hour of ploughing, after which exercise he enjoys the satisfaction of eating his dinner "in the sweat of his brow." Of all this, is it the plough and stoves the count considers necessary, or is it the dinner he intends with time to eliminate as superfluous?

And yet this practical side, however ridiculous in its innocence, is the only positive element of the teaching; all the rest is negative, and just this negation which underlies the theory is the poisonous and yet attractive side of it, at

least attractive for those who, themselves never having strained their energies in the cause of positive faith, feel glad to be absolved from any strivings by him who teaches that our ideal lies behind, and not before us. The relaxing of human energy, this is the corrupting element of the theory. Modern society as it has crystallized itself is declared wrong: therefore, all who had but a slight impulse of the sense of duty grasp at the theory as at a deliverance. Why should we work as long as the accomplishment of our best intentions depends upon a state of things which is wrong? All efforts of charity, all real enthusiasm, are undermined; nihilistic laughter greets the best strivings; a man has founded a hospital, but the hospital depends upon the government, and governments are immoral,consequently, the man is pitied as one who errs; another gives a sum for charitable institutions; if he were a real Christian, it is said, he ought to have given away everything-this does not count. Here, we repeat, we do not judge the teaching, we simply state the results of its influence. People start from the point that, if measured by the Gospel, we are all insolvent debtors, and therefore those who make efforts to acquit themselves, at least of a portion of their debts, are ridiculed. The intellectual influence is no less relaxing than the moral; civilization is proclaimed pernicious, and the ignorant by the fact of his ignorance considers himself above all others. Authorities are undermined, all workers of human enlightenment dethroned, people who have never read a line of philosophy declare with profession of competency that there is but one philosopher in the world, and this is Count Tolstoi. The religious influence is still worse. Tolstoi constructs his teaching on a basis of scripture texts; he and his followers consider that they have the monopoly of the right comprehension of the Gospels,-and thus people who never believed anything grasp at the Gospel, not in order to learn, but in order to establish the inferiority of those who believe, but cannot live up to its commands; on the basis of Christianity, a sect is aris

ing which supplants charity and love growth, therefore future ages will work by criticism and scorn.

And what is offered in all this as the positive beacon of hope? Tolstoi himself says he cannot foresee what will become of the world if all men follow his precepts; yet he asserts that our ideal lies "behind us;" this evidently means ages anterior to civilization. Only he does not determine the chronological moment; it is the age of iron or the age of stone? Or if he used the term in the sense of the age of the individual, will he say it was meant as the purity of childhood? Again, the moment is not determined. When does impurity begin? To be completely free from impurity, we must return to those days when we yet did not exist. And indeed, in the "Kreutzer Sonata," mankind is given advice which is equivalent to suicide. A theory, the principle of which is dissolution, could not but lead to death.

at the extension, and not at the extinetion of that which has been acquired by preceding ages. For the past exists as well as the future, and cannot be forced into non-existence. Count Tolstoi says that the lower people does not know Poushkin, and therefore he concludes Poushkins are useless. But he knows Poushkin, and he cannot force himself to forget him; and so long as he remembers he must want others to know him, for the moment they know him, they will want him.

No, Count Tolstoi shall not impede the blossoming of the world; however powerful the thinker, he shall never make any one believe that the author of "War and Peace" is useless because unknown to the ignorant; the philosopher shall not force out the artist, and shall not prevent him from becoming, even in spite of himself, one of the greatest educators of the future generations; the repentant author will not be able to erase himself from the list of the benefactors of humanity, for the artist in him has embodied in beauty too many great ideas, and "beauty, or the incorporated ideal,” says our philosopher, “is the better part of our real world, the one which not only exists, but is worthy of existence."

From "Pictures of Russian History and Russian
Literature." By Prince Serge Wolkonsky.
Lamson, Wolffe and Company, Publishers.

Dismemberment of society means retrograding of individuals; and where is the end of this gradual abdication? Shall we retrograde into the depth of centuries till we "return to earth"? Life is not possible without struggles; plants struggle and expel each other; society is the regulator of individual struggles. If society is wrong as it exists, this does not mean that it must be altogether destroyed or that the spirit of sociability is an element of nature which man must counter-check. How long would Count Tolstoi have to wait before individual self-improvement would suppress servitude? there would have been no servitude, he will answer, had humanity not shaped itself into societies. Maybe so, yet we cannot suppress the past, we have to work on the O Saints, dear Saints, so present, yet so given basis, we cannot start the world anew; servitude was a given fact, and once again, how long should we have had to wait for this given fact to die away? The world as it exists is also a fact, a living fact, not a dead sentence which can be erased and another substituted for it; and as it exists it lives, and nothing will arrest its further evolution on the basis of the past. The duty of the future is to regulate, not to suppress the continuation of the world's So Time has framed you with an aureole

far!

A GROUP OF SONNETS.
SAINTS.

I cannot touch you with my hand or trace
The aspect of your strength, your faith,

your grace;

Between us lie the years,-the gulf, the
bar.

But as one tracks the sunlight to the star,
And finds no dark nor flame-forsaken

space

To fret the beauty of its burning face,
Because the splendor swallows blot and

scar;

More circle-rounded than your age fore- And join thee to that nobler, sturdier band knew; Whose worship is not idle, fruitless, dumb.

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And strive to pierce the gathering shadein vain.

But lo, a torch! And now the brilliant train

Is manifest. Who may the bearer be? Not great himself, he maketh greatness plain.

Not clay nor wax nor perishable stock
Of earthly stones can yield a virile bust
Keen-edged against the centuries. Strive To him this praise at least. What more

thou must

In molten brass or adamantine rock

To carve the strenuous shape which shall not mock

Thy faith by crumbling dust upon thy dust.

Poet, the warning comes not less to thee! Match well thy metres with a strong design.

Let noble themes find nervous utterance. Flee

The frail conceit, the weak mellifluous line.

High thoughts, hard forms, toil, rigor,

these be thine,

And steadfast hopes of immortality.

TWO THOUGHTS.

When I reflect how small a space I fill
In this great teeming world of laborers,
How little I can do with strongest will,
How marred that little by most hateful
blurs,-

The fancy overwhelms me, and deters
My soul from putting forth so poor a skill;
Let me be counted with those worship-
pers

Who lie before God's altar and are still. But then I think (for healthier moments come),

This power of will, this natural force of hand,

What do they mean, if working be not wise?

Forbear to weigh thy work, O soul! Arise,

to me?

Mine is a lowly Muse. She cannot sing
A pageant or a passion; cannot cry
With clamorous voice against an evil
thing,

And break its power; but seeks with single

eye

To follow in the steps of Love her King, And hold a light for men to see Him by.

TO A STRANGE TEACHER.

Trouble me no more. The world is very wide

And full of souls whose primal faith has fled.

Go first to them; and leave one simple head,

Wherein the earlier teachings still abide. Why seek to fill a mouth that has not cried,

To clog satiety of bread with bread?
Can any hunger having richly fed?
Can one be full, and yet dissatisfied?
If I were wretched, you should perhaps
prevail;

At least I might give ear to you. But now,
Because I am so happy, and because,
Content with life, I would be as I was,
Your message moves me not. Who ques-
tions how

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BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

Acts of the Apostles, The. By Fred-
eric Rendall. Macmillan & Co., Pub-
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Brontes, The: Fact and Fiction. By
Angus M. Mackay. Service and
Paton, Publishers.

Burglar Who Moved Paradise, The. By
Herbert D. Ward. Houghton, Mifflin
and Company, Publishers. Price
$1.25.
Canterbury Cathedral, Tales from. By
Mrs. F. Lord. Sampson Low, Pub-
lisher.

Chevalier Bayard, The. By Edith Wal-
ford. Sampson Low, Publisher.
Cromwell's Place in History. By S. R.
Gardiner. Longmans, Publishers.
English Literature, A Handbook of.
By A. Dobson. Crosby Lockwood,
Publisher.

Epistle to Posterity, An. By Mrs. John
Sherwood. Harper & Brothers' Pub-
lishers. Price $2.50.

Falcon of Langeac, The. By Isabel Whitely. Copeland and Day, Publishers. Price $1.50.

French Revolution and English Litera-
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Paul, Publisher.

General Grant. (Great Commanders
Series). By James Grant Wilson. D.
Appleton & Company, Publishers.
Price $1.50.

Green Book, The. By Maurus Jokai.
Translated by Mrs. Waugh. Harper
& Brothers, Publishers. Price $1.50.
His Fortunate Grace. By Gertrude
Atherton. D. Appleton and Company,
Publishers. Price $1.

History of the Holy Dead. By the Rev.

James M. Gray. Fleming H. Revell
Company, Publishers.

Indian Gup; Untold Stories of the In

dian Mutiny. By the Rev. J. R. Baldwin. Neville Beeman, Publisher. Lads' Love. By S. R. Crockett. D. Appleton and Company, Publishers. Letters of a Country Vicar. From the French of Yves le Querdec. By Maria Gordon Holmes, William Heinemann, Publisher.

Maria Candelaria. By D. G. Brinton.
David McKay, Publisher.

Marriage Questions in Modern Fiction.
By Elizabeth Rachel Chapman. Joha
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Missionary Sheriff, The. By Octave
Thanet. Harper & Brothers, Pub-
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Opening of the Gates, The. By J.
MacBeth. Kegan Paul, Publisher.
Parish on Wheels, A. By the Rev. J.
Howard Winstead. Gardner, Darton
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Pioneers of Evolution. By Edward
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Publishers. Price $1.50.

Problems of Nature. By Gustav Jae-
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Secret of Saint Florel, The. By J. Berwick. Macmillan and Company, Publishers.

Sultan and His Subjects,

The. By
Richard Davey. Chapman and Hall,
Publishers.

Track of Midnight, The. By G. Firth
Scott. Sampson Low, Publisher.
Uncle Bernac. By A. Conan Doyle.
Smith & Elder, Publishers.

Ways of Life, The. By Mrs. Oliphant.
Smith & Elder, Publishers.

Wild Norway: With Chapters on Spitz-
By Abel
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Chapman. Edward Arnold, Publisher.

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V. THE TWENTIETH ITALIAN PARLIAMENT.
By "Quida,'

VI. NELL: A BIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT,
VII. BRAHMS AND THE CLASSICAL TRADI-

TION. By W. H. Hadow,

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Fortnightly Review,
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Contemporary Review,

VIII. A PROVENCAL SKETCH. By E. H. B., Leisure Hour,
IX. THE USES OF DIRECTORS,

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Spectator,

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