Nothing can be more genuine than his manner: there is no posing, no orating, no phrase-making; a quiet earnestness pervades all his utterances. The great defect in him arises, as I have already said, from a peculiarity in the development of his opinions: namely, that during so large a part of his life he has been wont to discuss subjects with himself and not with other men; that he has, therefore, come to worship idols of his own creation, and often very unsubstantial idols, and to look with misgiving and distrust on the ideas of others. Very rarely during our conversations did I hear him speak with any real enthusiasm regarding any human being: his nearest approach to it was with reference to the writings of the Rev. Adin Ballou, when he declared him the foremost literary character that America has produced. A result of all this is that when he is driven into a corner his logic becomes so subtle as to be imperceptible, and he is very likely to take refuge in paradoxes. At times, as we walked together, he would pour forth a stream of reasoning so lucid, out of depths so profound and reach conclusions so cogent, that he seemed fairly inspired. At other times he would develop a line of argument so outworn, and arrive at conclusions so inane, that I could not but look into his face closely to see if he could be really in earnest; but it always bore that same expression--forbidding the slightest suspicion that he was uttering anything save that which he believed, at least for the time being. As to the moral side, the stream of his thought was usually limpid, but at times it became turbid and his better ideas seemed to float on the surface as iridescent bubbles. Had he lived in any other country, he would have been a power mighty and permanent in influencing its thought and in directing its policy; as it is, his thought will pass mainly as the confused, incoherent wail and cry of a giant struggling against the heavy adverse currents in that vast ocean of Russian life: "The cry of some strong swimmer in his agony." The evolution of Tolstoi's ideas has evidently been mainly determined by his environment. During two centuries Russia has been coming slowly out of the middle ages--indeed, out of perhaps the most cruel phases of mediaeval life. Her history is, in its details, discouraging; her daily life disheartening. Even the aspects of nature are to the last degree depressing: no mountains; no hills; no horizon; no variety in forests; a soil during a large part of the year frozen or parched; a people whose upper classes are mainly given up to pleasure and whose lower classes are sunk in fetishism; all their poetry and music in the minor key; old oppressions of every sort still lingering; no help in sight; and, to use their own cry, "God so high and the Czar so distant."