Of course much of this has been recognized through all time. The formula in which Tolstoi has presented his meditations to the world is, however, so fresh that it comes like a revelation, with the additional merit of being understood, with little or no mental effort, by either the casual reader, who, with half-attention attracted by a headline, says to himself, “‘What is art?’ That looks interesting!” and skims lightly down the lines, or the thinker who, after perusing Tolstoi’s lucid words, lays down the volume with a sigh, and murmurs in his humiliation, “Why have I been all these years seeking in the clouds for what was lying ready at my hand?” The wide-reaching definition of the Russian writer has the effect of a vigorous blow from a pickaxe at the foundations of a shaky and too elaborate edifice. The wordy superstructure of aphorisms and paradox falls to the ground, disclosing fair “Truth,” so long a captive within the temple erected in her honor. As, however, the newly freed goddess smiles on the ignorant and the pedants alike, the result is that with one accord the æsthetes raise a howl! “And the ‘beautiful,’” they say, “the beautiful? Can there be any ‘Art’ without the ‘Beautiful’? What! the little greengrocer at the corner is an artist because, forsooth, he has arranged some lettuce and tomatoes into a tempting pile! Anathema! Art is a secret known only to the initiated few; the vulgar can neither understand nor appreciate it! We are the elect! Our mission is to explain what Art is and point out her beauty to a coarse and heedless world. Only those with a sense of the ‘beautiful’ should be allowed to enter into her sacred presence.” Here the expounders of “Art” plunge into a sea of words, offering a dozen definitions each more obscure than its predecessor, all of which have served in turn as watchwords of different “schools.” Tolstoi’s sweeping truth is too far-reaching to please these gentry. Like the priests of past religions, they would have preferred to keep such knowledge as they had to themselves and expound it, little at a time, to the ignorant. The great Russian has kicked away their altar and routed the false gods, whose acolytes will never forgive him. Those of my readers who have been intimate with painters, actors, or musicians, will recall with amusement how lightly the performances of an associate are condemned by the brotherhood as falling short of the high standard which according to these wiseacres, “Art” exacts, and how sure each speaker is of understanding just where a brother carries his “mote.”