raised her above either the reproach or praise of that stern community. She was undaunted at the thought of discovering for the world the new law of social relation, but her sure self-criticism secured the fit restraint. Of such a mental Titaness, Tess would have been the eager and devoted pupil.

They both followed Emerson's advice,

and hither it led them. In this realm the pupil becomes teacher, for depth of affection depends not on strength of mind. In neither case does love weigh the worth of its object. In the minister's violation of his own law Hester sees a consecrated thing; to Tess, Clare's London experience is but a beautiful link to tie them closer. Basely deserted, Hester bears the stigma of Dimmesdale's guilt through seven years of applauded hypocrisy, and at the end lightly gives up the fruit of her long scourging for a palsied wreck. Surely this is the heroism of love. That of Tess, however, reaches the sublime. When she, the innocent, is flung off by the guilty and left fighting for bare life while her heart feeds on its own rebuffs, then, though confronted by the proof of Angel's apostacy, her agonized mind still holds true. But the supreme height yet remains. After her best gift, cherished for him, is finally sacrificed through his brutal stupidity, she rushes into the shadow of the gallows, only happy to show Clare the final proof of her constancy. To Hester the Puritan, religion was much; to Hester the woman, love only was important; but the affection of Tess was both religion and love.

Their sin was but an aspect of love and its real nature was finally the same. Her right as a woman had been sold by Hester's parents; her sin lay in the inevitable struggle of her heart to express itself. Before a greater

law she forgot, or had never realized, perhaps, the lesser one which aims to make all marriage holy. Death finally removed the object of this struggle and left her baffled mind still in doubt. So too the murder of D'Urberville was the utterance of an outraged love struggling for its natural position. This act, however, was the violation of no fictitious law. Such a conflict never could have involved the cool brain and strong will of Hester. From the antagonism of natural laws also comes her earlier fall. "He bought me," says Tess, and for the shelter of mother and young sisters she paid herself. Tess illustrates the losing struggle of meek ignorance with a malignant fate aided by both the right and wrong of social law. Hester's sin results from the superiority of love over this law, and that Tess would have fallen before a like temptation the blood of D'Urberville attests. Hester illustrates more fairly than Tess the inequity of circumstance; she also discloses the greater problem of inequality of moral natures, but leaves it unsolved. This scaffold is not so much an estimate of their sin as of the necessity of the stern observance of our man-made but necessary order.

Tess and Hester refuse to be effaced from our portrait gallery. Though the rigidity of Hester, her grim selfabasement and the Miltonic grandeur of her nature may be typical, she is more than a composite photograph. She has all the elements of surprise and complexity known' in a personal friend. The fancy which was so curiously busy with Pearl and the burning letter spent all its force in outlining Hester as an absolutely legitimate creation. So, too, though Tess may stand for the Wessex maid and may share with others the flexible ease and plasticity of nature, her individuality does not merge. She herself partakes not at all of the great falsity of events which surround her. She has numerous little ways which, marking her out from all other women, leave her distinct in our minds.

As with Angel Clare and Liza-lu, we cast a final backward look at the great waving sheet of blackness we hide our

faces to weep. We have forgotten her red hands, forgotten even the fiendish destiny which crushed her, and remember only with love and pity the innocent, poetical child. The other grave and passionless face stares us into silence. If we dared look for the letter, we should see it shrivel from her breast and fall at our feet to accuse its beholders. The atmosphere about this sister of charity is pure, cold and penetrating. Perceiving the stones in our hands, we start, letting them fall to the ground. As we turn from the scaffold the child draws near to the woman, for the solution of her wrongs, and the silence of Hester, though thoughtful, is kindly.

George Graves.

TOLSTOY'S "WHAT IS ART?"

WHEN a great artist talks about his art all must listen

to his opinions with respect, as being uttered by one fully acquainted with his subject. But when this knowledge is used to repudiate all that has been considered greatest in art-the works of Shakespeare, 'Dante, and Goethe in literature, Beethoven and Wagner in music, and Michelangelo and Raphael in painting-we can but dissent. Such conclusions Tolstoy comes to in his pamphlet on Art, conclusions based on the following definition: "Art is a human activity by means of which some people transmit their feelings to others" and is good only when it expresses emotions tending to "unite men with God and with one another."

To further this universal brotherhood Tolstoy asserts that Art must be within the comprehension of the peasant. Art, in other words, should be brought down to the level of the moujik instead of the moujik being educated up to its level. This, then, is not only an argument against modern art but against education itself. For if art is to be within the comprehension of the lowest in the social scale, it must deal only with emotions and objects that come within the lowest mental sphere, and must bring nothing new to enlarge that sphere. Under such conditions the greatest artist would be the uneducated moujik, one who is in no danger of attempting an appeal to feelings beyond the range of understanding of his fellows. And we find Tolstoy even openly condemning general education. He declares modern science unprofitable, and writes: "Professional schools produce an hypocrisy of art precisely akin to that hypocrisy of religion which is produced by theological colleges for training priests, pastors, and religious teachers generally. As it is impossible in a school to train a man so as to make a religious teacher of him, so it is impossible to teach a man how to become an artist." The

author's condemnations of education are so radical that we begin to recognize the socialist beneath the thin disguise of artist and critic.

If art were to be merely the exploitation of the already known, there could be no advance in artistic perception. For art can only effect progress when it brings something new, something that excites the faculties by being imperfectly understood. By this exercise of the mind in constantly seeking the true meaning of what is hardly comprehensible, the sphere of perception in enlarged and the range of vision lengthened.

Art has always been in advance of contemporary civilization and beyond the mental grasp of the contemporaneous lower classes. But what at first began as art for the few has in time come to be appreciated by the many and recognized by them as universal art. Even the Parables of the Bible, which Tolstoy considers perfect art, were not fully understood by the throngs that heard them for the first time, and the Preacher was continually asked to interpret their meaning and application. Again, the compositions of Beethoven and Wagner, condemned by Tolstoy as being incomprehensible to the common people, are now required as numbers on the program of every popular concert in England and America in order to secure success.

Has any man the right or the power to judge contemporary art? A historian cannot write a just and true estimate of his own times, nor can a critic write clearly and accurately of modern art. It takes time to decide what will live and what die. Among the artists Tolstoy accuses of being within the comprehension of only a few there may be many that in the next century will be raised by acclamation of the people to the highest honor. It is even probable that among the great universal artists will be ranked Zola, Maeterlinck, Wagner, Puvis de Chavannes, and Rodin.

Tolstoy's conclusions are perfectly logical if we once accept his definition of art. But why should it be the right