Page:Leo Tolstoy - Father Sergius and Other Stories and Plays - ed. Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright (1911).djvu/12

6 biography, and his "Confession" immediately took rank beside those of St. Augustine and Rousseau.

When he propounded his interpretation of Christ's teaching, his works produced a profound impression, and, though they were prohibited in Russia, found a large circulation abroad besides a surreptitious one at home.

Next he took to writing short, simple stories for the people, and the very first of these, "What Men live by" (v. "Twenty-three Tales"), circulated by hundreds of thousands of copies in Russia, was translated into all civilized languages, and delighted people, old and young, in the five continents.

When he turned his attention to social problems, and wrote "What then must we do?" the book aroused the deepest interest wherever it was read, and was promptly recognized as one of the most remarkable studies of poverty ever penned.

He took to essays, and at once produced a series which many readers have declared to be as interesting and stimulating as any that were ever written.

Interested In the philosophy of art, he wrote "What is Art?" His preparation for this attempt to put art on a new basis took him, it is true, fifteen years, and a majority of critics everywhere denounced the opinions he expressed; but, at any rate, there was no doubt about the general interest he aroused, and the longer the matter is dis-