Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/298

284 the poisonous gases mingle with his blood; his organism becomes enfeebled,—often a swooning fit ensues, sometimes death,—while hundreds of people continue to breathe and live in the same pestiferous atmosphere, simply because all their functions have become enfeebled; because, in other words, their lives are weaker, less vital. If they say to me: These men live as much as the others, and who shall decide whose lives are the better and nearest to the normal? since it as often happens that a man coming from the vitiated atmosphere into the pure air faints away as the contrary—the answer is easy. Not a physiologist, but any simple man of sound common sense will say merely this: "Where the most of men live, in the pure air or in pestiferous dungeons," and will follow the majority; but the physiologist will make observations on the one and the other, and will say that the functions are stronger and the nutrition more complete in the one that lives in the pure air.

The same relationship exists between the arts of our so-called cultivated society, and the arts which the people demand: I mean painting and sculpture, and music, and poetry. A painting by Ivanof will excite in the people only amazement at its technical skill, but it will not excite any poetic or religious feeling, while this same religious feeling will be excited by the woodcut of Ioann of Novgorod and the devil in the pitcher.

The Venus of Melos will arouse only a legitimate detestation of a woman's nakedness and shamelessness. A quartet in Beethoven's last manner seems only a disagreeable noise, occasionally interesting only because one person plays on the cello and another on the violin. The best production of our poetry, Pushkin's lyric verse, seems a collection of words, but its meaning contemptible absurdities.