In looking for the typical and distinctive elements of national character in Russian literature we must remember that they are more to be observed in the tone of the author considered than in the characters he portrays, and this for a perfectly obvious reason: Russia is a land of extremes, not alone of condition but of advancement. One class outrivals the Parisian in refinement of desires, while no people in Europe can surpass the remoter peasant in his stolidity; the greatest wealth is just across the way from the most tax-oppressed poverty; high-minded patriotism sits on the same park-bench with a Red maniac; skepticism and religious credulity run to astounding contra extremes. Of course, the Russian composite character is modified by the antipodal nature of its society, but its literature is enriched by a vast variety of types, and when, as in the stories of Tolstoi, these types appear in dramatic juxtaposition; the effect is unique. It would be interesting to trace here each of these six nationally characteristic traits, but all are either dwelt upon in the succeeding introductory studies or are clearly illustrated in the accompanying stories; it may therefore be enough to point out in brief how naturally each takes its place in the sum total of Russian temperament. The physical vastness of this self-sufficient land, with its sweep of continent-wide, continent-long domain, must at once suggest the bigness of its spirit. Even its people grow big and Norse-like in frame, while the centuries of indifference to the outlanders’ views and ideals culminate readily in direct, fearless self-expression. Passion, too, finds a similar origin, encouraged by Tartar fire, Cossack physicality, and the composite life bred of oriental contact. Simplicity is often in our day written down as the sign of ignorance, or at least of inexperience of the great world; but in the Russian character it has mainly a nobler origin. What need for hesitation, finesse, caution in word and attitude, when one is certain of being the chosen of Heaven? Not even the Jew is more firmly convinced and poised than the Muscovite. The essential religiousness--the mystical religiousness--of the Slav is as old as his history. In fact, his Aryan origin, so often boasted of, points to the Hindu origin of his religious attitude of mind. True, many of his matter-of-fact appeals to divine things are habitual rather than reverential and often have too close association with base dealing to be convincing; still the peasant particularly is colored in all his life by his church and her tenets.