“His mastery is of the highest order. I have been re-reading his stories with the greatest pleasure. Some, as, for instance, ‘Children,’ ‘Sleepy,’ ‘In Court,’ are real masterpieces. I really read one story after another with great pleasure. And yet it is all a mosaic; there is no connecting inner link. “The most important thing in a work of art is that it should have a kind of focus, _i.e._ there should be some place where all the rays meet or from which they issue. And this focus must not be able to be completely explained in words. This indeed is one of the significant facts about a true work of art--that its content in its entirety can be expressed only by itself.” Tolstoi finds a great likeness between the talents of Chekhov and Maupassant. He prefers Maupassant for his greater joy in life. But, on the other hand, Chekhov’s gift is a purer gift then Maupassant’s. Sergeenko, I don’t remember in what connection, recalled a poem by Lermontov. Tolstoi said: “He had indeed a permanent and powerful seeking after truth! Pushkin has not that moral significance, but the sense of beauty is developed in him more highly than in any one else. In Chekhov, and in modern writers generally, there is an extraordinary development of the technique of realism. In Chekhov everything is real to the verge of illusion. His stories give the impression of a stereoscope. He throws words about in apparent disorder, and, like an impressionist painter, he achieves wonderful results by his touches.” Tolstoi likes M. Gorky very much as a man. He begins, however, to be disappointed with his work. Tolstoi said of him: “Gorky lacks a sense of proportion. He has a familiar style which is unpleasant.” Tolstoi wrote a short preface to Von Polenz’s novel _Der Büttnerbauer_. On that occasion he said: “As I read the novel, I kept saying to myself: ‘Why did not you, you fool, write this novel?’--indeed, I know this world; and how very important it is to point out the poetry of peasant life! Men with their civilization will cut down this lime tree here, this forest; they will lay pavements and make houses with tall chimneys, and they will destroy the boundless beauty of natural life.” On my asking him whether he had ever tried to write such a novel, Tolstoi said that he had done so several times long ago. Tolstoi said of Grigorovich: “He is now old-fashioned and seems feeble, but he is an important and remarkable writer, and God grant that Chekhov may be a tenth part as important as Grigorovich was. He belonged to the number of the best men who found an important movement. He has also many artistic merits. For instance, in the beginning of his _Anton Goremika_, when the old peasant comes home and gives his son or grandson a twig, it is a moving incident which depicts the old peasant as well as the simplicity and artlessness of his life.” Of Turgenev, Tolstoi said: