第4章 INTRODUCTION(4)

To Tolstoy and his aunt, on the contrary, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to indulge in egoistic abstractions and to expatiate on them; for a Russian feels none of the Anglo-Saxon's mauvaise honte in describing his spiritual condition, and is no more daunted by metaphysics than the latter is by arguments on politics and sport.

To attune the Anglo-Saxon reader's mind to sympathy with a mentality so alien to his own, requires that Tolstoy's environment should be de-scribed more fully than most of his biographers have cared to do. This prefatory note aims, therefore, at being less strictly biographical than illustrative of the contributory elements and cir-cumstances which sub-consciously influenced Tol-stoy's spiritual evolution, since it is apparent that in order to judge a man's actions justly one must be able to appreciate the motives from which they spring; those motives in turn requiring the key which lies in his temperament, his associations, his nationality. Such a key is peculiarly necessary to English or American students of Tolstoy, because of the marked contrast existing between the Rus-sian and the Englishman or American in these respects, a contrast by which Tolstoy himself was forcibly struck during the visit to Switzerland, of which mention has been already made. It is diffi-cult to restrain a smile at the poignant mental dis-comfort endured by the sensitive Slav in the company of the frigid and silent English frequent-ers of the Schweitzerhof ("Journal of Prince D.

Nekhludov " Lucerne, 1857), whose reserve, he realised, was "not based on pride, but on the absence of any desire to draw nearer to each other"; while he looked back regretfully to the pension in Paris where the table d' hote was a scene of spontaneous gaiety. The problem of British taciturnity passed his comprehension; but for us the enigma of Tolstoy's temperament is half solved if we see him not harshly silhouetted against a blank wall, but suffused with his native atmosphere, amid his native surroundings. Not till we understand the main outlines of the Rus-sian temperament can we realise the individuality of Tolstoy himself: the personality that made him lovable, the universality that made him great.

So vast an agglomeration of races as that which constitutes the Russian empire cannot obviously be represented by a single type, but it will suffice for our purposes to note the characteristics of the inhabitants of Great Russia among whom Tolstoy spent the greater part of his lifetime and to whom be belonged by birth and natural affinities.

It may be said of the average Russian that in exchange for a precocious childhood he retains much of a child's lightness of heart throughout his later years, alternating with attacks of morbid despondency. He is usually very susceptible to feminine charm, an ardent but unstable lover, whose passions are apt to be as shortlived as they are violent. Story-telling and long-winded dis-cussions give him keen enjoyment, for he is gar-rulous, metaphysical, and argumentative. In money matters careless and extravagant, dilatory and venal in affairs; fond, especially in the peas-ant class, of singing, dancing, and carousing; but his irresponsible gaiety and heedlessness of conse-quences balanced by a fatalistic courage and en-durance in the face of suffering and danger.

Capable, besides, of high flights of idealism, which result in epics, but rarely in actions, owing to the Slavonic inaptitude for sustained and or-ganised effort. The Englishman by contrast ap-pears cold and calculating, incapable of rising above questions of practical utility; neither inter-ested in other men's antecedents and experiences nor willing to retail his own. The catechism which Plato puts Pierre through on their first en-counter ("War and Peace") as to his family, possessions, and what not, are precisely similar to those to which I have been subjected over and over again by chance acquaintances in country-houses or by fellow travellers on journeys by boat or train. The naivete and kindliness of the ques-tioner makes it impossible to resent, though one may feebly try to parry his probing. On the other hand he offers you free access to the inmost recesses of his own soul, and stupefies you with the candour of his revelations. This, of course, relates more to the landed and professional classes than to the peasant, who is slower to express him-self, and combines in a curious way a firm belief in the omnipotence and wisdom of his social su-periors with a rooted distrust of their intentions regarding himself. He is like a beast of burden who flinches from every approach, expecting al-ways a kick or a blow. On the other hand, his affection for the animals who share his daily work is one of the most attractive points in his char-acter, and one which Tolstoy never wearied of emphasising--describing, with the simple pathos of which he was master, the moujik inured to his own privations but pitiful to his horse, shielding him from the storm with his own coat, or saving him from starvation with his own meagre ration; and mindful of him even in his prayers, invoking, like Plato, the blessings of Florus and Laura, pa-tron saints of horses, because "one mustn't forget the animals."

The characteristics of a people so embedded in the soil bear a closer relation to their native land-scape than our own migratory populations, and patriotism with them has a deep and vital mean-ing, which is expressed unconsciously in their lives.