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 in his autobiographical novel "Childhood": "I imagined there could be no happiness on earth for a man with so broad a nose, such thick lips, and such small gray eyes as mine. I asked God to perform a miracle and change me into a handsome boy" He tried to improve his appearance by clipping his eyebrows, with most disastrous results, as of course he was uglier and unhappier than ever.

Tolstoy showed no particular talent for anything as a child, though he was very original, and quite determined not to do things like other people. When he came into the drawing-room, for instance, he insisted upon bowing to people backwards, bending his head the wrong way, and saluting each person thus in turn. He was not good at his lessons, and mentions somewhere that a student who came to teach him and his brothers said about them: "Serge both wishes and can, Dmitry wishes but can't (This was not true), and Leo neither wishes nor can (This I think was perfectly true)." This was characteristic of Tolstoy, who was always hard on himself. But if the tutor lived to see what Tolstoy became, he must have been rather ashamed of his lack of perception.

Before Tolstoy was sixteen he entered a university with his brothers. There was no doubt that, like many other young people, he hated study, though he worked hard and passed well in languages. In history and geography he failed, and being asked to name the French seaports, he could not remember a single one.