Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 23.djvu/75

 solving by work the question of the greatest happiness accessible to man?"

(r) Such is the advice given by Zola to the youth of our time!

(aa) Something quite different is said by Dumas. The chief difference between Dumas's letter and Zola's discourse, to say nothing of the external difference, which is this, that Zola's discourse is directed to the youth and seems to curry favour with them (bb) (which has become a universal and disagreeable phenomenon of our time, as also the currying of favour with women by the authors), (cc) while Dumas's letter is not directed to the youth and does not make them compliments, but on the contrary points out to them their constant error of self-confidence, and so, instead of impressing upon the youth that they are very important personages and that the whole strength is in them, which they must by no means think, if they want to do something sensible, instructs not only them, but also adults and old people in very many things,—the chief difference is this, that Zola's discourse puts people to sleep, retaining them on the path on which they are travelling, assuring them that what they know is pre- cisely what they ought to know ; while Dumas's letter wakes people, pointing out to them that their life is not at all what it ought to be, and that they do not know the chief thing which they ought to know.

(dd) Dumas, too, believes as little in the superstition of the past as in the superstition of the present. But for the very reason that he does not believe in the supersti- tion of the past, nor in the superstition of the present, he thinks for himself, and so sees clearly, not only the pres- ent, but also the future, as those saw it who in antiquity were called " seeing " prophets. Strange though it must seem to those who, reading the works of authors, see only the external side of their authorship, and not the author's