ABSTRACT
THE writing of War and Peace not only left Tolstoy physically and mentally exhausted; but once this great absorption to which he had devoted the best of his energies for so many years was removed, he found himself confronted by a desolate sense of emptiness. Inevitably, he now sought diversion either in completely new interests, or in interests that had for long been laid aside. For a whole winter he gave himself up to reading philosophy: soaked himself in the works of Kant and Schopenhauer, both of whom he admired; and wrote down Hegel as being but a trafficker in empty and pretentious phrases.
