In this respect his methods are those of a miniature painter.

Another point must be borne in mind in studying Tolstoy's characters, that, unlike Turgeneff, who is almost exclusively objective, Tolstoy is in the highest degree subjective, and has presented a study of his own life and soul in almost every one of his works, in varying degrees, and combined with widely varying elements.

In the same way he has made use of the spiritual and mental state of his relatives.

For example, who can fail to recognize a self-portrait from the life in Levin ("Anna Karenin"), and in Prince Andrei Bolkonsky ("War and Peace")?
And the feminine characters in these great novels are either simple or composite portraits of his nearest relations, while many of the incidents in both novels are taken straight from their experience or his own, or the two combined.
It is useless to catalogue his many works with their dates in this place.

Unquestionably the finest of them (despite the author's present erroneous view, that they constitute a sin and a reproach to him) are his magnificent "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenin." Curiously enough, neither met with prompt or enthusiastic welcome in Russia when they first made their appearance.[43] The public had grown used to the very different methods of the other celebrated romance-writers of the '40's, with whom we have already dealt.