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17. Chapter XVII
Conclusion

IN this cursory review almost half of Leo Tolstoy's life lies before us.

Fearing to distort his original thoughts and the facts of his life by unskilled handling, I have tried wherever possible to let Tolstoy himself, or those nearest to him, his relatives and friends, his acquaintances and comrades, expound those thoughts and facts, reducing my part of the work to the presentation of a series of interesting pictures.

Notwithstanding the rawness of material, I believe that the nature of Tolstoy's personality during this half of his life must stand out clearly before the reader. To this end certain striking traits may be pointed out which impress one, and which appear as leading on to his further development.

One of these is his extraordinary capacity for being passionately carried away by anything brought within his sphere. Whether that happened to be hunting or card-playing, music or reading, school-teaching or farming, he exhausted to the very utmost each set of new impressions, transformed it in his artistic laboratory, and presented it to the world in lovely shapes, penetrated with high moral and philosophic meaning.

The same passionate ardor he carried into his search for truth, for the meaning of human life, and with the same power of genius he transformed and gave to the world the results of his work.

The other striking trait of his character is its truthful-ness; a sincerity which feared nothing, which often caused disagreeable encounters, but more often, and finally, brought him to the God of Truth, whom he always served, however unconsciously overshadowed by varying temporary attractions.

The third and final trait of his character is the love of goodness; the enjoyment of it, and the incessant labor upon himself in view of widening the domain of goodness, the winning others over to the path of goodness, the striving to show to others all its beauty.

It is evident that these three traits, combined with his natural gifts, were sufficient to win for him the world-wide influence he now possesses.

But glancing at the first half of his life we notice yet one more remarkable trait-his constant dissatisfaction with himself, with his social activity, with his literary work. This dissatisfaction has been maintained in him by constant self-analysis, which never allowed him to find rest in any of the beautiful illusions floating before him.

This dissatisfaction was not a sickly, causeless complaining. Deep and real causes lay at the bottom of it. With all the great resources of his spiritual development, he was devoid of a substantial foundation-of the synthesis of all the ideas in which he was interested. He often ap-proached the solution of the great problem, but could not get hold of it, passed on, and again suffered intensely and deeply.

These waverings round the one, the only possible, necessary, and satisfactory solution, explain all his apparent contradictions, his reasonings and self-accusations.

In the next volume we hope to narrate that current of events in Tolstoy's life which brought him to the moment when the thirst for truth, and the suffering occasioned by not finding it, culminated, and eventually led him to the only solution, the only foundation of life, and the only guide in his further exertions-to religion.