In Tolstoi the story never exists for its own sake, but for the sake of a very definite moral idea. Even in his later novels Tolstoi is not a preacher; he gives us an interpretation of life, not a theorising about life. But, to him, the moral idea is almost everything, and (what is of more consequence) it gives a great part of its value to his "realism" of prisons and brothels and police courts. In all forms of art, the point of view is of more importance than the subject-matter. It is as essential for the novelist to get the right focus as it is for the painter. In a page of Zola and in a page of Tolstoi you might find the same gutter described with the same minuteness; and yet in reading the one you might see only the filth, while in reading the other you might feel only some fine human impulse. Tolstoi "sees life steadily" because he sees it under a divine light; he has a saintly patience with evil, and so becomes a casuist through sympathy, a psychologist out of that pity which is understanding. And then, it is as a direct consequence of this point of view, in the mere process of unravelling things, that his greatest skill is shown as a novelist. He does not exactly write well; he is satisfied if his words express their meaning, and no more; his words have neither beauty nor subtlety in themselves. But, if you will only give him time, for he needs time, he will creep closer and closer up to some doubtful and remote truth, not knowing itself for what it is: he will reveal the soul to itself, like "God's spy." If you want to know how, daily life goes on among people who know as little about themselves as you know about your neighbours in a street or drawing-room, read Jane Austen, and, on that level, you will be perfectly satisfied. But if you want to know why these people are happy or unhappy, why the thing which they do deliberately is not the thing which they either want or ought to do, read Tolstoi; and I can hardly add that you will be satisfied. I never read Tolstoi without a certain suspense, sometimes a certain terror. An accusing spirit seems to peer between every line; I can never tell what new disease of the soul those pitying and unswerving eyes may not have discovered.