The next important book, "The Cossacks," is not a great novel. Tolstoi himself grew tired of it, and never finished it. It is interesting as an excellent picture of an interesting community, and it is interesting as a diary, for the chief character, Olenin, is none other than Leo Tolstoi. He departed for the Caucasus in much the same manner as the young writer, and his observations and reflections there are Tolstoi's own. The triple contrast in the book is powerfully shown: first, the contrast between the majesty of the mountains and the pettiness of man; second, the contrast between the noble simplicity of the Cossack women and the artificiality of the padded shapes of society females; third, the contrast between the two ways of life, that which Olenin recognises as right, the Christian law of self-denial, but which he does not follow, and the almost sublime pagan bodily joy of old Uncle Yeroshka, who lives in exact harmony with his creed. 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. If he satisfies it egotistically,--that is, if he bends his energies toward acquiring wealth, fame, physical comforts, love, it may happen that circumstances will make it impossible to satisfy this craving. In fact, these cravings are illegitimate, but the craving for happiness is not illegitimate. What cravings can always be satisfied independently of external conditions? Love, self-denial."* *Translated by Isabel Hapgood. His later glorification of physical labour, as the way of salvation for irresolute and overeducated Russians, is as emphatically stated in "The Cossacks" as it is in the "Kreuzer Sonata." "The constant hard field labour, and the duties intrusted to them, give a peculiarly independent, masculine character to the Greben women, and have served to develop in them, to a remarkable degree, physical powers, healthy minds, decision and stability of character." The chief difference between Turgenev and Tolstoi is that Turgenev was always an artist; Tolstoi always a moralist. It was not necessary for him to abandon novels, and write tracts; for in every novel his moral teaching was abundantly clear.