It is manifest that the works of art which he wrote during the last five-and-twenty years, after 1876, must bear deep traces of his new point of view. He began, first, by writing for the people, and although most of his small stories for popular reading are spoiled to some extent by the too obvious desire of drawing a certain moral, and a consequent distortion of facts, there are a few among them--especially _How much Land is required for a Man_--which are wonderfully artistic. _The Death of Iván Illýtch_ need only be named to recall the profound impression produced by its appearance. In order to speak to a still wider audience in the theatres for the people, which began to be started in Russia about that time, he wrote _The Power of Darkness_,--a most terrible drama from the life of the peasants, in which he aimed at producing a deep impression by means of a Shakespearian or rather Marlowian realism. His other play--_The Fruits of Civilisation_--is in a comical vein. The superstitions of the “upper classes” as regards spiritualism are ridiculed in it. Both plays (the former--with alterations in the final scene) are played with success on the Russian stage. However, it is not only the novels and dramas of this period which are works of Art. The five religious works which have been named on a preceding page are also works of art in the best sense of the word, as they contain descriptive pages of a high artistic value; while the very ways in which Tolstóy explains the economical principles of Socialism, or the No-Government principles of Anarchism, are as much masterpieces as the best socialistic and anarchistic pages of William Morris--far surpassing the latter in simplicity and artistic power. _Kreutzer Sonata_ is surely, after _Anna Karénina_, the work of Tolstóy which has been the most widely read. However, the strange theme of this novel and the crusade against marriage altogether which it contains so much attract the attention of the reader and usually become the subject of so passionate a discussion among those who have read it, that the high artistic qualities of this novel and the analysis of life which it contains have hardly received the recognition they deserve. The moral teaching that Tolstóy has put in _Kreutzer Sonata_ hardly need be mentioned, the more so since the author himself has withdrawn it to a very great extent. But for the appreciation of Tolstóy’s work and for the comprehension of the artist’s inner life this novel has a deep meaning. No stronger accusation against marriage for mere outer attraction, without intellectual union or sympathy of purpose between husband and wife, has ever been written; and the struggle that goes on between Kóznysheff and his wife is one of the most deeply dramatic pages of married life that we possess in any literature.