ABSTRACT
To creative activity, every danger becomes a boon, every hindrance a help and an advantage, for it generates and regenerates unknown forces. If a life is to have an effect upon the world, it must not stand still, for mental creative force, no less than bodily, springs from variety and transformation; there can be nothing more dangerous to an imaginative writer than contentment, mechanical labour, and a smooth course. The transformation which took place in Leo Tolstoy during the fiftieth year of his life was one which happens to us all, though in most persons it may escape notice. Hitherto Tolstoy had never questioned the universe as to its significance. He had contemplated it as an artist looks at his model, and had watched phenomena with the delight of a child. Whenever he had wished to describe them, they had yielded themselves to his will, had allowed him to caress them, to take them into his creative hands.
