The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-12-06
NEW ROCKS.
A Russian Estimate OF TOistoi and
DOst Oiey ski.

Deaf Of the Gods, &c discuss the two great
est Russian novelists since Turgeniev, and
for that reason we are indie hi ed to I he trans
lator Of the book EMIT led -Tolst OF as Man and
Artist" which includes an essay Oh Dos
toievski (Putnarn'sl. The aut hor begins
with pointing out that in the case of both
Tolstoi and Dostcievski. their works are
SO bound up with their lives. with the per
sonaity OF each writer, that, before study
ing them as art lists or thinkers, il Is inds-
Isnsable to learn what manner ol men
they were. The two nOveiists started on
very different social planes. 1olstoi was
the descendant on his mothers side Of the
Grand Duke 81. Michael Of Chernigov, and
on his fathers of Peter Andreivich Iolstui.
the favorte Of Peter the Great, the Chief
OF the Secret Chancery and n tutor to the
tzarevich Alcxei. Dostoiovski, on the
other hand, was the son Of a stan surgeon
and a ,radesman's daughter, born in a
charity hospital at Moscow. His fist i'm
pressions were OF penury and his whole
lie was spent IN poverty until ius, hciou"
the end Tolstoi early achieved literary dis
I inct ion and has always since been famous.
Dost oievski's first novel. Poor Folk" was
successful bur his next story, The Double,
was a failure. and thenCeforth although
lie was to produce such a masterpiece as
= rime and Punishment, =" his literary career
was a desperate struggle with Russian
public opinion. The attitude of the two
writer's toward literature was flindamen-
tally different. From his youth up, Tolstoi.
never having SHOWN what 1t was To bc IN
want or TO work for a living, has shrugged
his shoulders scornfullv AT the notion that
the true artists can work for money. One
o,n recognize the pfejudices of the old
fashioned country squire in the contempt
for men who depend upon the pen for a
livelihood. As men possessed of the old
pride OF gentle birth thought it degrading
o earn their bread by manual labor, so Toll
stoi deems il deroga,ory to take pay for
intellectual work Dost oievski, on the other
hand, was never ashamed TO toll for money
like a plain iourneyman He used to speak
Of himself as a post hack. On one oc-
casion he wrote against time three and a
half printed newspaper pages in two days
and two nights. i have never sold he
wrote. ANY of my books without getting
the price down beforehand. | am a literary
proet arian and, if anybody wants my
work he must insure me by prepayment"
Comparing the two novelis's from the
aesthetic point Of view. our author assigns
much the higher place TO Dost oievski, on
the score Of catholicity, of comprehension
and taste. DostoIevski, himself, used to
aay that he had two count ries. Russia and
Europe: IN the book before us he is pro-
nounced as next to Pushkin, "the most
Russian Of Russian authors, and, AZ the same
time the greatest Of our Cosmopolitaus
Tolstoi, on the other hand, although him
self an artist of Furop.an celebrity, and
himself deeply Characteristic OF Russian
nature. is not credited with the capacity FOR
fully absorbing universal culture which
distinguished his rival In spite Of all his
calculated and supposedly Christian cos
mopolit anism, there Is not. in Mere jkow-
skis opinion, another great Russian writer
so hampered as Is Tolst o in his creative
power by conditi ions of place and time and
the limits Of his own nationality. We
know, for inst ance, that in his youth he
was In Italy, but he brought thence no
impressions: we should never know from
his writings that he had ever crossed the
Alps II IL not denied that the creator Of
Peace and War" had, when he wrote that
work, an intellectual appreciation of his
tory, but IL is contended that he never
penetrated, or thought II worth while TO
penetrate, by means of the Imagination
into the spiritual life of other ages and
other nations His only interests are con-
temporary national activities those of
the Russian working class and those Of the
Russian gentlemen. From his youth Toll
stoi's asthetio sympat HES seem TO have
been narrow. Mere kowski denounces the
childish blasphemies" which Tos,o heaps
upon flames undispued and ancient To
Tolstoi, for example Faust" Is counterfeit
+ l. /. +. -, l., a tG.,tA1
The love tales Of Boccaccio he regards from
an ascot icallv Christian standpoint as "a
mass of 80 Xual nastiness." The creations
Of Eschylus. Sophoces, Euripides, Dante,
Milton and Shakespeare. the music Of Wag-
ner and Of Beethoven's later period, Tolsoi
first calls Calculated and unspont aneous,
and, later. coarse, savage and often sense
less" During performance of Hamlet.
he experienced, he tells us, that particular
rnaiaise which meretricious works produce.
Mere jkowski is disposed to compare the
parader Of such heresies to some savage
Caliban SCATTERING Egina marbles, or 10
Herostratus, the Ephesian, who burnt the
temple Of Diana merely to gain notoriety.
On the OF her hand, the same Tolstoi, who
raises his hand against .Eschylus and Dante.
and to whom Pushkin il. If not "a school,
man who wrote improver love verses, bows
down In simplicity before Berthold Auer-
bach, George Eliot and Uncle Toms
Cabin Mere jkowski is convinced that
in his conscious judgments on branches OF
art that are strange TO him. Tolstoi at the
closing Of his days has not gone far from
his first youth, when he studied with en-
thusiasm Dumas, Eugene Sue and Paul de
Kock More deplorable still, from under
the dread mask Of Calban peeps out the
familiar and by no means awc-inspiring
physiognomy of the Russian democrat ic
squire, the gentleman positivist Of the
SIXTIES
Dost oIevski's mind, on the other hand
was hospitable TO all the ancient and modern
literatures Of Europe. Not only did he
appreciate Shakespeare Schiller and all the
great representatives Of Romanticism. but
he could also value highly the great French
classics Of the seventeenth century, Corneile
and Racine, whom. in his boyhood. it was
fashionable to regard with disdain. This
son Of pauper-hospta surgeon, while
acknowledging the inward artifciali,y and
initial iveness Of the Flench classics, rev.