Thus Tolstoy's energies were left to go undivided into literary
production; its amount, as a result, was enormous. If all his writings
were to be collected, including the unpublished manuscripts now reposing
in the Rumyantzoff Museum, which are said to be about equal in quantity
to the published works, and if to this collection were added his
innumerable letters, most of which are of very great interest, the
complete set of Tolstoy's works would run to considerably more than one
hundred volumes. To discuss all of Tolstoy's writings, or even to
mention all, is here quite out of the question. All those, however, that
seem vital for the purpose of a just estimate and characterization will
be touched upon.
* * * * *
The literary fame of Tolstoy was abundantly secured already in the
earlier part of his life by his numerous short stories and sketches. The
three remarkable pen pictures of the siege of Sebastopol, and tales such
as "The Cossacks," "Two Hussars," "Polikushka," "The Snow-Storm," "The
Encounter," "The Invasion," "The Captive in the Caucasus," "Lucerne,"
"Albert," and many others, revealed together with an exceptional depth
of insight an extraordinary plastic ability and skill of motivation; in
fact they deserve to be set as permanent examples before the eyes of
every aspiring author. In their characters and their setting they
present true and racy pictures of a portentous epoch, intimate studies
of the human soul that are full of charm and fascination,
notwithstanding their tragic sadness of outlook. Manifestly this author
was a prose poet of such marvelous power that he could abstain
consistently from the use of sweeping color, overwrought sentiment, and
high rhetorical invective.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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