nobles, Russians, Austrians, Frenchmen! Not a line savours of improvisation. For this gallery of portraits, unexampled in European literature, Tolstoy made sketches without number: “combined,” as he says, “millions of projects”; buried himself in libraries; laid under contribution his family archives,[1] his previous notes, his personal memories. This meticulous preparation ensured the solidity of the work, but did not damp his spontaneity. Tolstoy worked with enthusiasm, with an eagerness and a delight which communicate themselves to the reader. Above all, the great charm of War and Peace resides in its spirit of youth. No other work of Tolstoy’s presents in such abundance the soul of childhood and of youth; and each youthful spirit is a strain of music, pure as a spring, full of a touching and penetrating grace, like a melody of Mozart’s. Of such are the young Nikolas Rostoff, Sonia, and poor little Petia.
Most exquisite of all is Natasha. Dear little girl!—fantastic, full of laughter, her heart full of affection, we see her grow up before us, we follow her through life, with the tenderness one would feel for a sister—who that has read of her does not feel that he has known her?… That wonderful night of spring, when Natasha, at her window, flooded
- ↑ I have remarked that the two families Rostoff and Bolkonsky, in War and Peace, recall the families of Tolstoy’s father and mother by many characteristics. Again, in the novels of the Caucasus and Sebastopol there are many of the types of soldiers, officers and men, which appear in War and Peace.
