In conclusion, a few words, at least, must be said about his “_Verse in Prose_,” or “_Senilia_” (1882). These are “flying remarks, thoughts, images,” which he wrote down from 1878 onwards under the impression of this or that fact of his own personal life, or of public life. Though written in prose, they are true pieces of excellent poetry, some of them real gems; some deeply touching and as impressive as the best verses of the best poets (_Old Woman_; _The Beggar_; _Másha_; _How Beautiful, how Fresh were the Roses_); while others (_Nature_, _The Dog_) are more characteristic of Turguéneff’s philosophical conceptions than anything else he has written. And finally, in _On the Threshold_, written a few months before his death, he expressed in most poetical accents his admiration of those women who gave their lives for the revolutionary movement and went on the scaffold, without being even understood at the time by those for whom they died. TOLSTÓY--CHILDHOOD AND BOYHOOD More than half a century ago, _i. e._ in 1852, the first story of Tolstóy, _Childhood_, soon followed by _Boyhood_, made its appearance in the monthly review, _The Contemporary_, with the modest signature, “L. N. T.” The little story was a great success. It was imbued with such a charm; it had such freshness, and was so free of all the mannerism of the literary trade, that the unknown author at once became a favourite, and was placed by the side of Turguéneff and Gontcharóff. There are excellent children’s stories in all languages. Childhood is the period of life with which many authors have best succeeded in dealing. And yet no one, perhaps, has so well described the life of children from within, from their own point of view, as Tolstóy did. With him, it is the child itself which expresses its childish feelings, and it does this so as to compel the reader to judge full-grown people with the child’s point of view. Such is the realism of _Childhood_ and _Boyhood_--that is, their richness in facts caught from real life--that a Russian critic, Písareff, developed quite a theory of education chiefly on the basis of the data contained in these two stories of Tolstóy’s. It is related somewhere that one day, during their rambles in the country, Turguéneff and Tolstóy came across an old hack of a horse which was finishing its days in a lonely field. Tolstóy entered at once into the feelings of the horse and began to describe its sad reflections so vividly, that Turguéneff, alluding to the then new ideas of Darwinism, could not help exclaiming, “I am sure, Lyov Nikoláevitch, that you _must_ have had horses among your ancestors!” In the capacity of entirely identifying himself with the feelings and the thoughts of the beings of whom he speaks, Tolstóy has but few rivals; but with children this power of identification attains its highest degree. The moment he speaks of children, Tolstóy becomes himself a child.