Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/109

Rh especially, luck. He remained in the service, and his ambition was soon so well satisfied, that there was nothing more for him to wish in that respect. He had carried himself from his very youth as if he had been preparing himself to occupy that illustrious place in the world where fate had later put him. Therefore, although in his brilliant and somewhat vain life, as in all other lives, there were annoyances, disappointments and failures, he not even once was false to his ever calm character, nor to his high ideals, nor to the fundamental tenets of religion and morality, and he earned universal respect not only on the basis of his high position, but on the basis also of his consistency and fortitude.

He was a man of mediocre mind, but, thanks to his position, which permitted him to look with disdain at all the vain tribulations of life, his ideals were of an elevated character. He was good and sympathetic, but somewhat cold and haughty in manner. That came from his being placed in a position where he could be useful to many, so that by his coldness he endeavoured to guard himself against the unrelenting prayers and requests of people who wished to make use of his influence. His coldness, however, was softened by the condescending civility of a man of the great world. He was well educated and well read; but his education stopped at what he had acquired in youth, that is, at the end of the last century. He had read everything worth while that had been written in France during the eighteenth century in the field of philosophy and eloquence, knew thoroughly all the best productions of French literature, so that he could and did with pleasure quote passages from Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Molière, Montaigne, Fénelon; he was brilliantly versed in mythology, and with benefit had studied, in French translations, the ancient monuments of epic poetry; he had a fair knowledge of history, which he drew from Ségur; but he did not have the least concep-