Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/519

Rh of them), it is observable how this moral feeling grew in the author, and how by degrees, and unconsciously, that which formerly constituted the chief meaning and happiness of his life was for him dethroned, and assessed at its true value.

And the astonishing capacity of every man of real genius, if only he does not do violence to himself under the influence of false theory, lies precisely in this: that genius teaches its possessor, leads him forward on the road of moral development, and makes him love that which deserves love, and hate that which deserves hatred. An artist is only an artist because he sees things, not as he wishes to see them, but as they are. The possessor of genius, the man, may fall into error; but genius, if only free rein be given it as De Maupassant has given it rein in his stories, will disclose, undrape, the object to him; will make him love it if it deserve love, and hate it if it deserve hatred. With every true artist, when, under the influence of his circle, he begins to represent that which he ought not to represent, there happens what happened to Balaam, who, wishing to bless, cursed what should be cursed, and, wishing to curse, blessed what should be blessed; he will involuntarily do, not what he wishes, but what he should do. And this happened in the case of De Maupassant.

There has hardly been another writer who so sincerely thought that all the welfare, all the meaning of life, is in women, in love, and who with such a power of passion described, from all sides, woman and her love; and there has hardly ever been a writer who with such clearness and precision has shown all the awful phases of that same thing which seemed to be highest and to afford the greatest welfare in life. The more he fathomed the question the more it revealed itself; all coverings fell off from it, and left only its awful consequences and its yet more awful essence.

Read of the idiot son; of the night with a daughter in "L'Hermite"; of the sailor with his sister in "Le Port"; read "Champ d'Olives," "La Petite Roque," "Miss Harriet," "Monsieur Parent," " L'Armoire";