30 STUDY OUTLINE ON War and peace. In Warner. Library of the world's best litera- ture, v. 25 or 37, p. 15015-30. "War and peace" is less a novel than a vast panorama of Russian life during the Napoleonic invasion. It is as prodig- ious as Russia itself, and at times almost as devoid of unity and progression as the steppes. . . . The thesis of the story is the very antithesis of most histories and novels; that the figures which shine in the forefront are the splendidly decor- ated puppets of the vast, inchoate power of the peoples be- hind them ; that these leaders who wear stars and give orders are borne onward or beaten down by forces which they cannot control ; that both generals and armies are the creatures of an inscrutable fate. The hero of this wonderful prose epic is the Russian people rising in response to a mysterious instinct for sacrifice. And yet what superb descriptive passages, what convincing and masterly portraits, sustain and reward the interest of the reader as he floats through Russia on the bosom of a stream as vast as the Volga and touching as many kinds of life. Hamilton W. Mabie. Where love is there God is also. In Outlook. 88 : 746-53. March 28, '08. In "Master and man," "The death of Ivan Ilyitch," "The horse's story," "Where love is," to select a few representative tales, one feels the spells of a commanding personality which shrinks from no circumstance of life, from no type of char- acter, from no form of experience ; which is passionately sym- pathetic and relentlessly impartial; which neither spares nor judges, but sees with an artist's brain and dramatizes with an artist's deep and tender skill. Hamilton IV. Mabie. References Baring. Landmarks in Russian literature, p. 77-115. Baring. Outline of Russian literature, p. 196-210. Brandes. Impressions of Russia, p. 337-53- Bruckner. Literary history of Russia, p. 364-89. Dupuy. Great masters of Russian literature, p. 215-338, 414-22. Hapgood. Survey of Russian literature, p. 250-63. Kropotkin. Russian literature, p. 109-48, 295-99; Same. Ideals and realities in Russian literature, p. 109-48, 295-99. Pardo-Bazan. Russia: its people and its literature, p. 255-74. Phelps. Essays on Russian novelists, p. 170-214. Vogtie. The Russian novel, p. 271-332; Same. Vogue. Russian novelists, p. 209-69. Waliszewski. History of Russian literature, p. 360-99. Warner. Library of the world's best literature, v. 25 or 37, p. 14985-94.
