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A hundred years ago no one would have doubted the value of music in producing and maintaining moral. Two hundred years ago or thereabouts Dryden wrote a poem which illustrated the power of music. Forty years ago Tolstoi wrote a short novel to show how a particular sonata affected not moral, but morality. We seem to have forgotten the truths familiar then.
From early childhood up to the time of his Illumination Tolstoi indulged in seriousness of thought. Like Mohammed, great and overpowering desire to fathom the mystery of death took possession of him.
The author's mouthpiece in the story is the drunkard Nasanski, who prophesies of the good time of the brotherhood of man far in the future. This is to be brought about, not by the teachings of Tolstoi, which he ridicules, but by self-assertion. This self-assertion points the way to Artsybashev's "Sanin," although in Kuprin it does not take on the form of absolute selfishness.
Christianity is an historical failure its counsels of perfection, its command to turn the other cheek a farce. When a modern spiritual genius, a Tolstoi, repeats it, all Christendom laughs, as at a new freak of insanity. All practical, honorable men are Jews at heart. Judaism has never tampered with human dignity, nor perverted the moral consciousness.
Yeroshka is a living force, a real character, and might have been created by Gogol. Olenin, who is young Tolstoi, and not very much of a man, soliloquises in language that was echoed word for word by the Tolstoi of the twentieth century. "Happiness consists in living for others. This also is clear. Man is endowed with a craving for happiness; therefore it must be legitimate.
At the same instant, other inventors happen upon it, anticipate it, or are hot upon the trail. The popular phrase runs, "the idea is in the air." When an idea is in the air, a mutation is about to occur in the human brain. We are, says Nicolai, on the eve of a "mutation of war." Moltke and Tolstoi represent the two great contrasted variations in human thought.
Tolstoi said the advice was good, but that he would also have advised the young man to speak out his ideas, whatever they might be. He said that only in this way could any advance ever be made; that one main obstacle in human progress is the suppression of the real thoughts of men.
During our stay on the plateau of Pilnitz, the enemy, and above all the Russians, received many reinforcements, the main one, led by General Benningsen was of not less than 60,000 men, and was composed of the corps of Doctoroff and Tolstoï and the reserve of Prince Labanoff.
The story of Pistzoff's conversion inevitably recalls that of Tolstoi. He was a very rich merchant when, feeling himself inspired by heavenly truth, he called his employés to him and gave them all that he had, including furniture and works of art, retaining nothing but white garments for himself and his family.
Tolstoi picked up the book and read the first sentence: "On the eve of the fete the guests began to arrive." He was charmed by the abrupt opening, and cried: "That's the way to begin a book! The reader is immediately taken into the action. Another writer would have begun by a description, but Pushkin, he goes straight to his goal."
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