98 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XII 



and reach conclusions so cogent, that he seemed fairly 

 inspired. At other times he would develop a line of argu 

 ment so outworn, and arrive at conclusions so inane, that I 

 could not but look into his face closely to see if he could 

 be really in earnest ; but it always bore that same expres 

 sionforbidding the slightest suspicion that he was utter 

 ing anything save that which he believed, at least for the 

 time being. 



As to the moral side, the stream of his thought was 

 usually limpid, but at times it became turbid and his better 

 ideas seemed to float on the surface as iridescent bubbles. 



Had he lived in any other country, he would have been 

 a power mighty and permanent in influencing its thought 

 and in directing its policy ; as it is, his thought will pass 

 mainly as the confused, incoherent wail and cry of a giant 

 struggling against the heavy adverse currents in that vast 

 ocean of Russian life : 



&quot; The cry of some strong swimmer in his agony.&quot; 



The evolution of Tolstoi s ideas has evidently been 

 mainly determined by his environment. During two cen 

 turies Russia has been coming slowly out of the middle 

 ages indeed, out of perhaps the most cruel phases of 

 mediaeval life. Her history is, in its details, discourag 

 ing; her daily life disheartening. Even the aspects of 

 nature are to the last degree depressing : no mountains ; no 

 hills; no horizon; no variety in forests; a soil during a 

 large part of the year frozen or parched ; a people whose 

 upper classes are mainly given up to pleasure and whose 

 lower classes are sunk in fetishism; all their poetry and 

 music in the minor key ; old oppressions of every sort still 

 lingering; no help in sight; and, to use their own cry, 

 &quot;God so high and the Czar so distant. 7 



When, then, a great man arises in Russia, if he gives 

 himself wholly to some well-defined purpose, looking to 

 one high aim and rigidly excluding sight or thought of the 

 ocean of sorrow about him, he may do great things. If he 



