9. And the first striking difference is that Tolstoy is a consummate artist, a creator, in addition to the great preacher. For Marcus Aurelius is no artist. He is merely a speaker; he delivers his message in plain tongue, unadorned, often even unpolished. Epictetus, equally simple, equally direct with Marcus Aurelius, comes, however, already adorned with a certain humor which now and then sparkles through his serious pages. Ruskin brings with him quite a respectable load of artistic baggage; he brings an incisiveness, a sarcasm, often a piquancy with him, which makes him entertaining besides inspiring. Emerson and Carlyle bring with them much that, as artistic work; might, under more favorable auspices, have been worth saving for its own sake: the one brings a grace, a sportiveness, and a brilliancy which fascinates, the other a fervor, an imagination, a grim-humor, a lightning-flashing, which dazzles. But none of these live in letters because of their art. Were they to depend on this alone, they would quickly perish. They live because of the spirit which worketh through them; so that were you to take the Jeremiah out of Carlyle, the John the Baptist out of Ruskin, and the Solomon out of Emerson, you would deprive them of their literary life. Tolstoy, however, even though the preacher be gone from him, still remains a mighty power in letters because of his art. For not only are his works filled with the highest purpose,--they are also created with the highest art. And I cannot show you this difference any better than by quoting two passages, one from Carlyle, the other from Tolstoy, both treating of the soul's well-nigh noblest emotion,--Repentance. "On the whole, we make too much of faults. Faults? The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. Readers of the Bible, above all, one would think, might know better. Who is called there 'the man according to God's own heart'? David, the Hebrew king, had fallen into sins enough; blackest crimes; there was no want of sins. And therefore the unbelievers sneer, and ask, 'Is this the man according to God's own heart?' The sneer, I must say, seems to be but a shallow one. "What are faults, what are the outward details of a life, if the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, true, often-battled, never-ending struggle of it be forgotten? 'It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.' Of all acts, is not, for a man, _repentance_ the most divine? The deadliest sin, I say, were the same supercilious consciousness of no sin; that is death; the heart so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility, and fact,--is dead; it is 'pure,' as dead dry sand is pure.