Tolstoi himself, at the end of the century, divided his life into four periods:* the innocent, joyous, and poetic time of childhood, from earliest recollection up to the age of fourteen; the "terrible twenties," full of ambition, vanity, and licentiousness, lasting till his marriage at the age of thirty-four; the third period of eighteen years, when he was honest and pure in family life, but a thorough egoist; the fourth period, which he hoped would be the last, dating from his Christian conversion, and during which he tried to shape his life in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount. *His own "Memoirs," edited by Birukov, are now the authority for biographical detail. They are still in process of publication. He was born at Yasnaya Polyana, in south central Russia, not far from the birthplace of Turgenev, on the 28 August 1828. His mother died when he was a baby, his father when he was only nine. An aunt, to whom he was devotedly attached, and whom he called "Grandmother," had the main supervision of his education. In 1836 the family went to live at Moscow, where the boy formed that habit of omnivorous reading which characterised his whole life. Up to his fourteenth year, the books that chiefly influenced him were the Old Testament, the "Arabian Nights," Pushkin, and popular Russian legends. It was intended that he should follow a diplomatic career, and in preparation for the University of Kazan, he studied Oriental languages. In 1844 he failed to pass his entrance examinations, but was admitted some months later. He left the University in 1847. From his fourteenth to his twenty-first year the books that he read with the most profit were Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," under the influence of which he wrote his first story, Pushkin, Schiller's "Robbers," Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev's "A Sportsman's Sketches;" and to a less degree he was affected by the New Testament, Rousseau, Dickens's "David Copperfield," and the historical works of the American Prescott. Like all Russian boys, he of course read the romances of Fenimore Cooper.