admiration at what it pretends to feel--this has been the great novelist’s aim in his delineation of Russia’s life. Ever seeking the one truth--to arrive at men’s thoughts and sensations under the daily pressure of life--never flinching from his exploration of the dark world of man’s animalism and incessant self-deception, Tolstoy’s _realism_ in art is symbolical of our absorption in the world of fact, in the modern study of natural law, a study ultimately without loss of spirituality, nay, resulting in immense gain to the spiritual life. The _realism_ of the great Russian’s novels is, therefore, more in line with the modern tendency and outlook than is the general tendency of other schools of Continental literature. And Tolstoy must be finally looked on, not merely as _the conscience of the Russian world_ revolting against the too heavy burden which the Russian people have now to bear in Holy Russia’s onward march towards the building-up of her great Asiatic Empire, but also as the soul of the modern world seeking to replace in its love of humanity the life of those old religions which science is destroying day by day. In this sense Tolstoy will stand in European literature as the conscience of the modern world. EDWARD GARNETT. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE [Sidenote: =Count Tolstoy= _see Frontispiece_] Lyeff Nikolaevitch Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana on August 28th (September 9th new style), 1828. His father, Count Nicholas Tolstoy, was a member of the old Russian nobility. In 1813, after the siege of Erfurt, he was taken prisoner by the French and afterwards retired from the army holding the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Having assumed the burden of many family debts, he succeeded in paying his creditors in full, thus gaining a reputation for unfailing perseverance. Tolstoy has described his character in “Childhood and Youth.” “He was a man of the last century,” he wrote, “and, like all his contemporaries, he had in him something chivalrous, enterprising, self-possessed, amiable, a passion for pleasure.... His life was so full of all kinds of impulse that he had no time to think about convictions; and besides, he had been so happy all his life that he did not feel it necessary to do so.” His father died before Tolstoy reached the age of ten years, seven years after the death of his mother, of whom he wrote: “When I try to recall to mind my mother as she was then, only her brown eyes arise before me, always the same look of love and kindness in them. If during the most trying moments of my life I could have caught a glimpse of her smile, I should not have known what grief is.” [Sidenote: =Tolstoy in his Student days= _see page_ 2] [Sidenote: =Yasnaya Polyana= _see page_ 3]