_The Wood-Felling_ has passed the Censor pretty fairly, though from it also some valuable touches have disappeared. ...In that sketch there are many astonishingly acute remarks, and it is all _new_, interesting, and to the point. Do not neglect such sketches. Of the common soldier our literature has as yet not spoken, except frivolously. Tourgénef, writing from his estate at Spássky to Panáef, said: Tolstoy's article about Sevastopol is wonderful! Tears came into my eyes as I read it, and I shouted, Hurrah! I am greatly flattered by his wish to dedicate his new tale to me.... Here his article has produced a general furore. By the side of these contemporary estimates one may set Kropótkin's appreciation written fifty years later: All his powers of observation and war-psychology, all his deep comprehension of the Russian soldier, and especially of the plain un-theatrical hero who really wins the battles, and a profound understanding of that inner spirit of an army upon which depend success and failure: everything, in short, which developed into the beauty and the truthfulness of _War and Peace_, was already manifested in these sketches, which undoubtedly represented a new departure in war-literature the world over. It is worth while to note the very different conclusions to which Kinglake, the historian of this war, and Tolstoy, its novelist, arrived. Kinglake holds the war to have been unnecessary, and attributes it chiefly to the unscrupulous ambition of Napoleon III; yet he blames the Peace Party very severely for protesting against it, for had they not done so Nicholas, he thinks, would not have dared to act aggressively. Kinglake feels that negotiations between rulers and diplomatists are important, and that anything that prevents a Government from speaking with authority, makes for confusion and disaster. Tolstoy, on the other hand (if I may anticipate and speak of conclusions not definitely expressed by him till much later), regards all war and preparation for war as immoral, and wishes this conviction to become so strong and so general that it will be impossible for any future Napoleon to plunge five nations into war to gratify his own ambition. Kinglake understands things as they are, and knows how easy it is to do harm with good intentions, but is somewhat blind to the trend of human progress, and as to what the aim before us should be. Tolstoy, on the contrary, is chiefly concerned about the ultimate aim, and about the state of mind of the individual. The actual working of our political system and international relations are things he ignores. The English writer sees clearly what is, and cares little about what should be; the Russian writer cares immensely about what should be, and rather forgets that it can only be approached by slow and difficult steps, to take which surefootedly, needs an appreciation of things as they are.