work, and last, but not least, the prolonged labours upon “War and Peace” and “Anna Karènina” fill up the next fifteen years. “War and Peace” (1864-9) is a huge panorama of the Napoleonic campaign of 1812, with preceding and succeeding episodes in Russian society. These four volumes display in their superlative degree Tolstoy’s indifference to plot and his absorption in individual character; they are rather a series of scenes threaded upon the fortunes of several families than a set novel; but they contain passages of penetrating psychology and vivid description, as well as a certain amount of anarchist theorising. Of this work, by which its author became known in the West, Flaubert (how the name carries us backward!) wrote: “It is of the first order. What a painter and what a psychologist! The two first volumes are sublime, but the third drags frightfully. There are some quite Shakespearean things in it.” The artist’s hand was now strengthening for his highest attainment. In 1876 appeared “Anna Karènina,” his greatest, and as he intended at the time (but Art is not so easily jilted), his last novel. The fine qualities of this book, which, though long, is [Illustration: A FAMOUS PAINTING OF TOLSTOY] dramatically unified and vitally coherent, have been so fully recognised that I need not attempt to describe them. Mr. George Meredith has described Anna as “the most perfectly depicted female character in all fiction,” which, from the author of “Diana,” [Illustration: A PHOTOGRAPH OF COUNT TOLSTOY TAKEN AT YASNAYA POLYANA (Reproduced from “Anna Karènina” by kind permission of Messrs Walter Scott Ltd.) ] is praise indeed. Parallel with the main subject of the illicit love of Anna and Vronsky there is a minor subject in the fortunes of Levin and Kitty, wherein the reader will discover many of Tolstoy’s own experiences. Matthew Arnold complained that the book contained too many characters and a burdensome multiplicity of actions, but praised its author’s extraordinarily fine perception and no less extraordinary truthfulness, and frankly revelled in Anna’s [Illustration: RUSSIAN JAILER AND WOMAN WARDER “The jailer, rattling the iron padlock, opened the door of the cell.” (From an illustration by Pasternak in the English Edition of “Resurrection,” reproduced by kind permission of Mr. F. R. Henderson)]