I feel sure the stultifying effects of such cruel and senseless treatment would have been even more serious, had not the school authorities, by some strange oversight, allowed _one_ really readable and interesting periodical to find a place among the Sunday magazines and other sterilised literature obtainable in the School Library. This one publication, which I read ardently during my school years, was _Chambers's Journal_. It contained novels by James Payn, and other matter suited to my powers of mental digestion. From smuggled copies of Captain Marryat's novels I also got a good deal of culture: far more, I am sure, than from any of the lessons we endured. CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER VIII Tolstoy's Educational articles, and N. V. Ouspensky, _Iz Proshlago_. CHAPTER IX MARRIAGE The Behrs visit Yásnaya. Proposal by thought-reading. The Diary. Marriage. Ministers on magazine. The school closed and the magazine stopped. Family happiness. Health. Fet's visit. Sergius born. Children. _The Cossacks_ and _Polikoúshka_. Bees. Plays. _Confession._ Saving the hay. _Decembrists._ Samára. Preparations for _War and Peace_. Collected edition. Translations. Dislocates arm. Tatiána born. Fears of famine. Sergius (brother) and Tánya Behrs. Nikólsky. Visits Borodinó. Tolstoy at home and with the children. Relations with servants. Masquerade. Moscow. Drawing school. Sculpture. Ilyá born. Pleads at court-martial. Dr. Zahárin. _Smoke._ Fet's Literary Evening. _War and Peace._ Schopenhauer. Pénza. Death of V. P. Bótkin. The Countess and the children's education. English nurse. Tolstoy's habits. Visitors. Fet. Tolstoy's ardour. Property. Untidiness. Respect for sleep. Newspapers. Characteristics. Studies the drama. TO one who admires Tolstoy's educational work, it is somewhat disconcerting to see how scornfully he spoke of it sixteen years later in his _Confession_. But that is always his way: the old is useless and worthless and bad; only the new, the unachieved, the fresh ideal, is admirable. For it, he decries all that the past has produced--including himself and his former work. He makes his points broadly and powerfully, but to understand, we must discriminate, and allow for an artistic temperament tempting him to exaggerate. Let him however speak for himself, that the reader may judge: