Even his last work--"in my former style," as he described it--"Resurrection," has special doctrines and aims too emphatically insisted upon to permit of the reader deriving from it the pure literary pleasure afforded by his masterpieces.

In short, with all due respect to the entire sincerity of this magnificent writer, it must be said that those who would enjoy and appreciate him rightly, should ignore his philosophico-religious treatises, which are contradictory and confusing to the last degree.

As an illustration, let me cite the case of the famine in Russia of 1891-92.

Great sums of money[45] were sent to Count Tolstoy, chiefly from America, and were expended by him in the most practicable and irreproachable manner--so any one would have supposed--for the relief of the starving peasants.

Count Tolstoy and his assistants lived the life of the peasants, and underwent severe hardships; the Count even fell ill, and his wife was obliged to go to him and nurse him.