[16] Lecture on _The Superiority of the Artistic Element in Literature over all its Contemporary Tendencies._ [17] He cited against Tolstoy his own examples, including the old postilion in _The Three Deaths._ [18] We may remark that another brother, Dmitri, had already died of the same disease in 1856. Tolstoy himself believed that he was attacked by it in 1856, in 1862, and in 1871. He was, as he writes (the 28th of October, 1852), "of a strong constitution, but feeble in health." He constantly suffered from chills, sore throats, toothache, inflamed eyes, and rheumatism. In the Caucasus, in 1852, he had "two days in the week at least to keep his room." Illness stopped him for several months in 1854, on the road from Silistria to Sebastopol. In 1856, at Yasnaya, he was seriously ill with an affection of the lungs. In 1862 the fear of phthisis induced him to undergo a _Koumiss_ cure at Samara, where he lived with the Bachkirs, and after 1870 he returned thither almost yearly. His correspondence with Fet is full of preoccupations concerning his health. This physical condition enables one the better to understand his obsession by the thought of death. In later years he spoke of this illness as of his best friend: "When one is ill one seems to descend a very gentle slope, which at a certain point is barred by a curtain, a light curtain of some filmy stuff; on the hither side is life, beyond is death. How far superior is the state of illness, in moral value, to that of health! Do not speak to me of those people who have never been ill! They are terrible, the women especially so! A woman who has never known illness is an absolute wild beast!" (Conversations with M. Paul Boyer, _Le Temps_, 27th of August, 1901.) [19] Letter to Fet, October 17, 1860 _(Further Letters_: in the French version, _Correspondance inédite,_ pp. 27-30). [20] Written in Brussels, 1861. [21] Another novel written at this period is a simple narrative of a journey_--The Snowstorm_--which evokes personal memories, and is full of the beauty of poetic and quasi-musical impressions. Tolstoy used almost the same background later, in his _Master and Servant_ (1895). CHAPTER VII "FAMILY HAPPINESS" From this period of transition, during which the genius of the man was feeling its way blindly, doubtful of itself and apparently exhausted, "devoid of strong passion, without a directing will," like Nekhludov in the _Diary of a Sportsman_--from this period issued a work unique in its tenderness and charm: _Family Happiness_ (1859). This was the miracle of love.