His father, Count N.I. Tolstoy, who retired from the army
about the time of his son's birth, had been among the
prisoners taken by Napoleon's invading forces in the war of
1812. He died suddenly in 1837. Young Tolstoy after three
years at Kazan University decided to abandon his college
studies without graduating, so repelled was he by the degraded
character of the average student. Retiring to his estate at
Yasnaya Polyana in 1847, he sought, though without success, to
ameliorate the condition of his serfs. The Imperial decree of
emancipation was not promulgated till 1861. In 1851 Count
Tolstoy joined the army in the Caucasus, and shortly
afterwards he participated in the defence of Sebastopol during
the great Crimean War. Since that period his life has been a
wonderful career of literary success. On his fine estate, with
his large family and his servants about him, he lives the life
of a simple peasant, advocating a form of socialism which he
considers to constitute a practical interpretation of the
Sermon on the Mount. In "Anna Karenina" Tolstoy manifestly
aims at furnishing an elaborate delineation of the
sociological ethics of high life in Russia. It is a lurid and
sombre recital, of the most realistic kind. It is not a story
of the masses, for no prominent characters from lower life
appear. Little is seen of the ways and doings of the poor. All
the real personages of this story are members of the
fashionable section of St. Petersburg and Moscow, or are great
landed proprietors, or high officials. In these pages appear
some of the noblest and some of the most profligate
characters, and all are perfectly typical. As in all the
writings of Tolstoy, wit and humour are entirely lacking, but
the emotionalism is intense, the psychological analysis is