WALKS AND TALKS WITH TOLSTOI -MARCH, 1894 97 



the next generation the day of such pretenders will be 

 done. His prophesying against &quot;art for art s sake&quot;; his 

 denunciation of art which simply ministers to sensual 

 pleasure ; his ridicule of art which can be discerned only 

 by l people of culture &quot; ; his love for art which has a sense, 

 not only of its power, but of its obligations, which puts 

 itself at the service of great and worthy ideas, which ap 

 peals to men as men in this he is one of the best teachers 

 of his time and of future times. 



Yet here come in his unfortunate limitations. From his 

 substitutions of assertion for inference, and from the in 

 adequacy of his view regarding sundry growths in art, 

 literature, and science, arises endless confusion. 



For who will not be skeptical as to the value of any 

 criticism by a man who pours contempt over the pictures 

 of Puvis de Chavannes, stigmatizes one of Beethoven s 

 purest creations as &quot;corrupting,&quot; and calls Shakspere a 

 &quot;scribbler&quot;! 



Nothing can be more genuine than his manner : there is 

 no posing, no orating, no phrase-making; a quiet earnest 

 ness pervades all his utterances. The great defect in him 

 arises, as I have already said, from a peculiarity in the 

 development of his opinions : namely, that during so large 

 a part of his life he has been wont to discuss sub 

 jects with himself and not with other men; that he has, 

 therefore, come to worship idols of his own creation, and 

 often very unsubstantial idols, and to look with misgiving 

 and distrust on the ideas of others. Very rarely during 

 our conversations did I hear him speak with any real 

 enthusiasm regarding any human being: his nearest ap 

 proach to it was with reference to the writings of the 

 Rev. Adin Ballou, when he declared him the foremost lit 

 erary character that America has produced. A result of 

 all this is that when he is driven into a corner his logic be 

 comes so subtle as to be imperceptible, and he is very 

 likely to take refuge in paradoxes. 



At times, as we walked together, he would pour forth a 

 stream of reasoning so lucid, out of depths so profound, 



II. 7 



