Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And he was so keenly interested by the question of what she was saying to Stepan Arkadyevitch, that he scarcely heard what Vorkuev was telling him of the qualities of the story for children Anna Arkadyevna had written. At tea the same pleasant sort of talk, full of interesting matter, continued. There was not a single instant when a subject for conversation was to seek; on the contrary, it was felt that one had hardly time to say what one had to say, and eagerly held back to hear what the others were saying. And all that was said, not only by her, but by Vorkuev and Stepan Arkadyevitch—all, so it seemed to Levin, gained peculiar significance from her appreciation and her criticism. While he followed this interesting conversation, Levin was all the time admiring her—her beauty, her intelligence, her culture, and at the same time her directness and genuine depth of feeling. He listened and talked, and all the while he was thinking of her inner life, trying to divine her feelings. And though he had judged her so severely hitherto, now by some strange chain of reasoning he was justifying her and also sorry for her, and afraid that Vronsky did not fully understand her. At eleven o'clock, when Stepan Arkadyevitch got up to go (Vorkuev had left earlier), it seemed to Levin that he had only just come. Regretfully Levin too rose. 'Good-bye,' she said, holding his hand and glancing into his face with a winning look. 'I am very glad que la glace est rompue.' She dropped his hand, and half closed her eyes. 'Tell your wife that I love her as before, and that if she cannot pardon me my position, then my wish for her is that she may never pardon it. To pardon it, one must go through what I have gone through, and may God spare her that.' 'Certainly, yes, I will tell her . . . ' Levin said, blushing. XI 'W HAT a marvellous, sweet, and unhappy woman!' he was thinking, as he stepped out into the frosty air with Stepan Arkadyevitch. 'Well, didn't I tell you?' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, seeing that Levin had completely won over. 'Yes,' said Levin dreamily, 'an extraordinary woman! It's not her cleverness, but she has such wonderful depth of feeling. I'm awfully sorry for her!' 'Now, please God, everything will soon be settled. Well, well, don't be hard on people in future,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch, opening the carriage door. 'Good-bye; we don't go the same way.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Ever since they've all turned against her, all those who're a thousand times worse than she, I've thought she did a very fine thing. I can't forgive Vronsky for not letting me know when she was in Petersburg. I'd have gone to see her and gone about with her everywhere. Please give her my love. Come, tell me about her.' 'Yes, her position is very difficult; she . . .' began Stepan Arkadyevitch, in the simplicity of his heart accepting as sterling coin Princess Myaky's words 'tell me about her'. Princess Myaky interrupted him immediately, as she always did, and began talking herself. 'She's done what they all do, except me—only they hide it. But she wouldn't be deceitful, and she did a fine thing. And she did better still in throwing up that crazy brother-in-law of yours. You must excuse me. Everybody used to say he was so clever, so very clever; I was the only one that said he was a fool. Now that he's so thick with Lidia Ivanovna and Landau, they all say he's crazy, and I should prefer not to agree with everybody, but this time I can't help it.' 'Oh, do please explain,' said Stepan Arkadyevitch; 'what does it mean? Yesterday I was seeing him on my sister's behalf, and I asked him to give me a final answer. He gave me no answer, and said he would think it over. But this morning, instead of an answer, I received an invitation from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for this evening.' 'Ah, so that's it, that's it!' said Princess Myaky gleefully, 'they're going to ask Landau what he's to say.' 'Ask Landau? What for? Who or what's Landau?' 'What! you don't know Jules Landau, le fameux Jules Landau, le clairvoyant? He's crazy too, but on him your sister's fate depends. See what comes of living in the provinces—you know nothing about anything. Landau, do you see, was a commis in a shop in Paris, and he went to a doctor's; and in the doctor's waiting-room he fell asleep, and in his sleep he began giving advice to all the patients. And wonderful advice it was! Then the wife of Yury Meledinsky—you know, the invalid?—heard of this Landau, and had him to see her husband. And he cured her husband, though I can't say that I see he did much good, for he's just as feeble a creature as ever he was, but they believed in him, and took him along with them and brought him to Russia. Here there's been a general rush to him, and he's begun doctoring everyone. He cured Countess Bezzubov, and she took a fancy to him that she adopted him.' 'Adopted him?' 'Yes, as her son.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Oh, you're laughing at it!' 'On the contrary, you can't imagine how, when I look at you, I'm always learning the task that lies before me, that is the education of one's children.' 'Well, there's nothing for you to learn,' said Lvov. 'All I know,' said Levin, 'is that I have never seen better brought-up children than yours, and I wouldn't wish for children better than yours.' Lvov visibly tried to restrain the expression of his delight, but he was positively radiant with smiles. 'If only they're better than me! That's all I desire. You don't know 'yet all the work,' he said, 'with boys who've been left like mine to run wild abroad.' 'You'll catch all that up. They're such clever children. The great thing is the education of character. That's what I learn when I took at your children.' 'You talk of the education of character. You can't imagine how difficult that is! You have hardly succeeded in combating one tendency when others crop up, and the struggle begins again. If one had not a support in religion—you remember we talked about that—no father could bring children up reiving on his own strength alone without that help.' This subject, which always interested Levin, was cut short by the entrance of the beauty Natalie Alexandrovna, dressed to go out. 'I didn't know you were here,' she said, unmistakably feeling no regret, but a positive pleasure, in interrupting this conversation on a topic she had heard so much of that she was by now weary of it. 'Well, how is Kitty? I am dining with you today. I tell you what, Arseny,' she turned to her husband, 'you take the carriage.' And the husband and wife began to discuss their arrangements for the day. As the husband had to drive to meet someone on official business, while the wife had to go to the concert and some public meeting of a committee on the Eastern Question, there was a great deal to consider and settle. Levin had to take part in their plans as one of themselves. It was settled that Levin should go with Natalie to the concert and the meeting, and that from there they should send the carriage to the office for Arseny, and he should call for her and take her to Kitty's; or that, if he had not finished his work, he should send the carriage back and Levin would go with her. 'He's spoiling me,' Lvov said to his wife; 'he assures me that our children are splendid, when I know how much that's bad there is in them.' 'Arseny goes to extremes, I always say,' said his wife. 'If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Straight along the avenue and you'll come right upon it. But whom do you want? The count himself?' 'Well, are they at home, my good man?' Darya Alexandrovna said vaguely, not knowing how to ask about Anna, even of this peasant. 'At home for sure,' said the peasant, shifting from one bare foot to the other, and leaving a distinct print of five toes and a heel in the dust. 'Sure to be at home,' he repeated, evidently eager to talk. 'Only yesterday visitors arrived. There's a sight of visitors come. What do you want?' He turned round and called to a lad, who was shouting something to him from the cart. 'Oh! They all rode by here not long since, to look at a reaping-machine. They'll be home by now. And who will you be belonging to? . . . ' 'We've come a long way,' said the coachman, climbing on to the box. 'So it's not far?' 'I tell you, it's just here. As soon as you get out. . . ' he said, keeping hold all the while of the carriage. A healthy-looking, broad-shouldered young fellow came up too. 'What, is it labourers they want for the harvest?' he asked. 'I don't know, my boy.' 'So, you keep to the left, and you'll come right on it,' said the peasant, unmistakably loath to let the travellers go, and eager to converse. The coachman started the horses, but they were only just turning off when the peasant shouted: 'Stop! Hi, friend! Stop!' called the two voices. The coachman stopped. 'They're coming! They're yonder!' shouted the peasant. 'See what a turn-out!' he said, pointing to four persons on horseback, and two in a char-à-banc, coming along the road. They were Vronsky with a jockey, Veslovsky, and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara and Sviazhsky in the char-à-banc. They had gone out to look at the working of a new reaping-machine. When the carriage stopped, the party on horseback were coming at a walking-pace. Anna was in front beside Veslovsky. Anna, quietly walk ing her horse, a sturdy English cob with cropped mane and short tail, her beautiful head with her black hair straying loose under her high hat, her full shoulders, her slender waist in her black riding-habit, and all the ease and grace of her deportment, impressed Dolly. For the first minute it seemed to her unsuitable for Anna to be on horseback. The conception of riding on horseback for a lady was, in Darya Alexandrovna's mind, associated with ideas of youthful flirtation and frivolity, which, in her opinion, was unbecoming in Anna's position. But when she had scrutinised her, seeing her closer, she was at once reconciled to her riding. In spite of her elegance, everything was so simple, quiet, and dignified in the attitude, the dress and the movements of Anna, that nothing could have been more natural.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Fine chaps those Montenegrins!' 'You don't say so!' he cried, when the princess told him that Vronsky was going by this train. For an instant Stepan Arkadyevitch's face looked sad, but a minute later, when, stroking his moustaches and swinging as he walked, he went into the hall where Vronsky was, he had completely forgotten his own despairing sobs over his sister's corpse, and he saw in Vronsky only a hero and an old friend. 'With all his faults one can't refuse to do him justice,' said the princess to Sergey Ivanovitch as soon as Stepan Arkadyevitch had left them. 'What a typically Russian, Slav nature! Only, I'm afraid it won't be pleasant for Vronsky to see him. Say what you will, I'm touched by that man's fate. Do talk to him a little on the way,' said the princess. 'Yes, perhaps, if it happens so.' 'I never liked him. But this atones for a great deal. He's not merely going himself, he's taking a squadron at his own expense.' 'Yes, so I heard.' A bell sounded. Everyone crowded to the doors. 'Here he is!' said the princess, indicating Vronsky, who with his mother on his arm walked by, wearing a long overcoat and wide-brimmed black hat. Oblonsky was walking beside him, talking eagerly of something. Vronsky was frowning and looking straight before him, as though he did not hear what Stepan Arkadyevitch was saying. Probably on Oblonsky's pointing them out, he looked round in the direction where the princess and Sergey Ivanovitch were standing, and without speaking lifted his hat. His face, aged and worn by suffering, looked stony. Going on to the platform, Vronsky left his mother and disappeared into a compartment. On the platform there rang out 'God save the Tsar,' then shouts of 'hurrah!' and 'jivio!' One of the volunteers, a tall, very young man with a hollow chest, was particularly conspicuous, bowing and waving his felt hat and a nosegay over his head. Then two officers emerged, bowing too, and a stout man with a big beard, wearing a greasy forage-cap. III S AYING good-bye to the princess, Sergey Ivanovitch was joined by Katavasov; together they got into a carriage full to overflowing, and the train started. At Tsaritsino station the train was met by a chorus of young men singing 'Hail to Thee!' Again the volunteers bowed and poked their heads out, but Sergey Ivanovitch paid no attention to them. He had had so much to do with the volunteers that the type was familiar to him and did not interest him. Katavasov, whose scientific work had prevented his having a chance of observing them hitherto, was very much interested in them and questioned Sergey Ivanovitch. Sergey Ivanovitch advised him to go into the second-class and talk to them himself. At the next station Katavasov acted on this suggestion. At the first stop he moved into the second-class and made the acquaintance of the volunteers.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Darya Alexandrovna's eyes were fairly dazzled by the elegant carriage of a pattern she had never seen before, the splendid horses, and the elegant and gorgeous people surrounding her. But what struck her most of all was the change that had taken place in Anna, whom she knew so well and loved. Any other woman, a less close observer, not knowing Anna before, or not having thought as Darya Alexandrovna had been thinking on the road, would not have noticed anything special in Anna. But now Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty, which is only found in women during the moments of love, and which she saw now in Anna's face. Everything in her face, the clearly marked dimples in her cheeks and chin, the line of her lips, the smile which, as it were, fluttered about her face, the brilliance of her eyes, the grace and rapidity of her movements, the fullness of the notes of her voice, even the manner in which, with a sort of angry friendliness, she answered Veslovsky when he asked permission to get on her cob, so as to teach it to gallop with the right leg foremost—it was all peculiarly fascinating, and it seemed as if she were herself aware of it, and rejoicing in it. When both the women were seated in the carriage, a sudden embarrassment came over both of them. Anna was disconcerted by the intent look of inquiry Dolly fixed upon her. Dolly was embarrassed because after Sviazhsky's phrase about 'this vehicle,' she could not help feeling ashamed of the dirty old carriage in which Anna was sitting with her. The coachman Philip and the counting-house clerk were experiencing the same sensation. The counting-house clerk, to conceal his confusion, busied himself settling the ladies, but Philip the coachman became sullen, and was bracing himself not to be over-awed in future by this external superiority. He smiled ironically, looking at the raven horse, and was already deciding in his own mind that this smart trotter in the char-à-banc was only good for promenage, and wouldn't do thirty miles straight off in the heat. The peasants had all got up from the cart and were inquisitively and mirthfully staring at the meeting of the friends, making their comments on it. 'They're pleased, too; haven't seen each other for a long while,' said the curly-headed old man with the bast round his hair. 'I say, Uncle Gerasim, if we could take that raven horse now, to cart the corn, that 'ud be quick work!' 'Look-ee! Is that a woman in breeches?' said one of them, pointing to Vassenka Veslovsky sitting in a side-saddle. 'Nay, a man! See how smartly he's going it!' 'Eh, lads! seems we're not going to sleep, then ?' 'What chance of sleep today!' said the old man, with a sidelong look at the sun.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  In the circle to which Sergey Ivanovitch belonged, nothing was talked of or written about just now but the Servian War. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time was done now for the benefit of the Slavonic States. Balls, concerts, dinners, matchboxes, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants—everything testified to sympathy with the Slavonic peoples. From much of what was spoken and written on the subject, Sergey Ivanovitch differed on various points. He saw that the Slavonic question had become one of those fashionable distractions which succeed one another in providing society with an object and an occupation. He saw, too, that a great many people were taking up the subject from motives of self-interest and self-advertisement. He recognised that the newspapers published a great deal that was superfluous and exaggerated, with the sole aim of attracting attention and outbidding one another. He saw that in this general movement those who thrust themselves most forward and shouted the loudest were men who had failed and were smarting under a sense of injury—generals without armies, ministers not in the ministry, journalists not on any paper, party leaders without followers. He saw that there was a great deal in it that was frivolous and absurd. But he saw and recognised an unmistakable growing enthusiasm, uniting all classes, with which it was impossible not to sympathise. This massacre of men who were fellow-Christians, and of the same Slavonic race, excited sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the oppressors. And the heroism of the Servians and Montenegrins struggling for a great cause begot in the whole people a longing to help their brothers not in word but in deed. But in this there was another aspect that rejoiced Sergey Ivanovitch. That was the manisfestation of public opinion. The public had definitely expressed its desire. The soul of the people had, as Sergey Ivanovitch said, found expression. And the more he worked in this cause, the more incontestable it seemed to him that it was a cause destined to assume vast dimensions, to create an epoch. He threw himself heart and soul into the service of this great cause, and forgot to think about his book. His whole time now was engrossed by it, so that he could scarcely manage to answer all. the letters and appeals addressed to him. He worked the whole spring and part of the summer, and it was only in July that he prepared to go away to his brother's in the country.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Where are they?' 'In the study.' Passing through the dining-room, a room not very large, with dark panelled walls, Stepan Arkadyevitch and Levin walked over the soft carpet to the half-dark study, lighted up by a single lamp with a big dark shade. Another lamp with a reflector was hanging on the wall, lighting up a big full-length portrait of a woman, which Levin could not help looking at. It was the portrait of Anna, painted in Italy by Mihailov. While Stepan Arkadyevitch went behind the treillage, and the man's voice which had been speaking paused, Levin gazed at the portrait, which stood out from the frame in the brilliant light thrown on it, and he could not tear himself away from it. He positively forgot where he was, and not even hearing what was said, he could not take his eyes off the marvellous portrait. It was not a picture, but a living, charming woman, with black curling hair, with bare arms and shoulders, with a pensive smile on the lips, covered with soft down; triumphantly and softly she looked at him with eyes that baffled him. She was not living only because she was more beautiful than a living woman can be. 'I am delighted!' He heard suddenly near him a voice, unmistakably addressing him, the voice of the very woman he had been admiring in the portrait. Anna had come from behind the treillage to meet him, and Levin saw in the dim light of the study the very woman in the portrait, in a dark blue shot gown, not in the same position nor with the same expression, but with the same perfection of beauty which the artist had caught in the portrait. She was less dazzling in reality, but, on the other hand, there was something fresh and seductive in the living woman which was not in the portrait. X S HE had risen to meet him, not concealing her pleasure at seeing him; and in the quiet ease with which she held out her little vigorous hand, introduced him to Vorkuev and indicated a red-haired, pretty little girl who was sitting at work, calling her her pupil, Levin recognised and liked the manners of a woman of the great world, always self-possessed and natural. 'I am delighted, delighted,' she repeated, and on her lips these simple words took for Levin's ears a special significance. 'I have known you and liked you a long while, both from your friendship with Stiva and for your wife's sake. . . .

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And Kitty, with her careful housekeeping, had no little trouble to get all the chickens, turkeys, and geese, of which so many were needed to satisfy the summer appetites of the visitors and children. The whole family were sitting at dinner. Dolly's children, with their governess and Varenka, were making plans for going to look for mushrooms. Sergey Ivanovitch, who was looked up to by all the party for his intellect and learning, with a respect that almost amounted to awe, surprised everyone by joining in the conversation about mushrooms. 'Take me with you. I am very fond of picking mushrooms,' he said, looking at Varenka; 'I think it's a very nice occupation.' 'Oh, we shall be delighted,' answered Varenka, colouring a little. Kitty exchanged meaning glances with Dolly. The proposal of the learned and intellectual Sergey Ivanovitch to go looking for mushrooms with Varenka confirmed certain theories of Kitty's with which her mind had been very busy of late. She made haste to address some remark to her mother, so that her look should not be noticed. After dinner Sergey Ivanovitch sat with his cup of coffee at the drawing-room window, and while he took part in a conversation he had begun with his brother, he watched the door through which the children would start on the mushroom-picking expedition. Levin was sitting in the window near his brother. Kitty stood beside her husband, evidently awaiting the end of a conversation that had no interest for her, in order to tell him something. 'You have changed in many respects since your marriage, and for the better,' said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling to Kitty, and obviously little interested in the conversation, 'but you have remained true to your passion for defending the most paradoxical theories.' 'Katya, it's not good for you to stand,' her husband said to her, putting a chair for her and looking significantly at her. 'Oh, and there's no time either,' added Sergey Ivanovitch, seeing the children running out. At the head of them all Tanya galloped sideways, in her tightly-drawn stockings, and waving a basket and Sergey Ivanovitch's hat, she ran straight up to him. Boldly running up to Sergey Ivanovitch with shining eyes, so like her father's fine eyes, she handed him his hat and made as though she would put it on for him, softening her freedom by a shy and friendly smile. 'Varenka's waiting,' she said, carefully putting his hat on, seeing from Sergey Ivanovitch's smile that she might do so. Varenka was standing at the door, dressed in a yellow print gown, with a white kerchief on her head.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Darya Alexandrovna was well aware that even porridge for the children's breakfast does not come of itself, and that therefore, where so complicated and magnificent a style of luxury was maintained, someone must give earnest attention to its organisation. And from the glance with which Alexey Kirillovitch scanned the table, from the way he nodded to the butler, and offered Darya Alexandrovna her choice between cold soup and hot soup, she saw that it was all organised and maintained by the care of the master of the house himself. It was evident that it all rested no more upon Anna than upon Veslovsky. She, Sviazhsky, the princess, and Veslovsky, were equally guests, with light hearts enjoying what had been arranged for them. Anna was the hostess only in conducting the conversation. The conversation was a difficult one for the lady of the house at a small table with persons present, like the steward and the architect, belonging to a completely different world, struggling not be over-awed by an elegance to which they were unaccustomed, and unable to sustain a large share in the general conversation. But this difficult conversation Anna directed with her usual tact and naturalness, and indeed she did so with actual enjoyment, as Darya Alevandrovna observed. The conversation began about the row Tushkevitch and Veslovsky had taken alone together in the boat, and Tushkevitch began describing the last boat-races in Petersburg at the Yacht Club. But Anna, seizing the first pause, at once turned to the architect to draw him out of his silence. 'Nikolay Ivanitch was struck,' she said, meaning Sviazhsky, 'at the progress the new building had made since he was here last; but I am there every day, and every day I wonder at the rate at which it grows.' 'It's first-rate working with his excellency,' said the architect with a smile (he was respectful and composed, though with a sense of his own dignity). 'It's a very different matter to have to do with the district authorities. Where one would have to write out sheaves of papers, here I call upon the count, and in three words we settle the business.' 'The American way of doing business,' said Sviazhsky, with a smile. 'Yes, there they build in a rational fashion…' The conversation passed to the misuse of political power in the United States, but Anna quickly brought it round to another topic, so as to draw the steward into talk. 'Have you ever seen a reaping-machine,' she said, addressing Darya Alexandrovna. 'We had just ridden over to look at one when we met. It's the first time I ever saw one.' 'How do they work?' asked Dolly. 'Exactly like little scissors.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  And some people said that Madame Stahl had made her social position as a philanthropic, highly religious woman; other people said she really was at heart the highly ethical being, living for nothing but the good of her fellow-creatures, which she represented herself to be. No one knew what her faith was— Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. But one fact was indubitable—she was in amicable relations with the highest dignitaries of all the churches and sects. Varenka lived with her all the while abroad, and everyone who knew Madame Stahl knew and liked Mademoiselle Varenka, as everyone called her. Having learned all these facts, the princess found nothing to object to in her daughter's intimacy with Varenka, more specially as Varenka's breeding and education was of the best—she spoke French and English extremely well—and what was of the most weight, brought a message from Madame Stahl expressing her regret that she was prevented by her ill-health from making the acquaintance of the princess. After getting to know Varenka, Kitty became more and more fascinated by her friend, and every day she discovered new virtues in her. The princess, hearing that Varenka had a good voice, asked her to come and sing to them in the evening. 'Kitty plays, and we have a piano; not a good one, it's true, but you will give us so much pleasure,' said the princess with her affected smile, which Kitty disliked particularly just then, because she noticed that Varenka had no inclination to sing. Varenka came, however, in the evening and brought a roll of music with her. The princess had invited Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter and the colonel. Varenka seemed quite unaffected by there being persons present she did not know, and she went directly to the piano. She could not accompany herself, but she could sing music at sight very well. Kitty, who played well, accompanied her. 'You have an extraordinary talent,' the princess said to her after Varenka had sung the first song extremely well. Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter expressed their thanks and admiration. 'Look,' said the colonel, looking out of window, 'what an audience has collected to listen to you.' There actually was quite a considerable crowd under the windows. 'I am very glad it gives you pleasure,' Varenka answered simply. Kitty looked with pride at her friend. She was enchanted by her talent, and her voice and her face, but most of all by her manner, by the way Varenka obviously thought nothing of her singing and was quite unmoved by their praises. She seemed only to be asking: 'Am I to sing again, or is that enough?' 'If it had been I,' thought Kitty, 'how proud I should have been! How delighted I should have been to see that crowd under the windows! But she's utterly unmoved by it.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Sviazhsky was one of those people, always a source of wonder to Levin, whose convictions, very logical though never original, go one way by themselves, while their life, exceedingly definite and firm in its direction, goes its way quite apart and almost always in direct contradiction to their convictions. Sviazhsky was an extremely advanced man. He despised the nobility, and believed the mass of the nobility to be secretly in favour of serfdom, and only concealing their views from cowardice. He regarded Russia as a ruined country, rather after the style of Turkey, and the government of Russia as so bad that he never permitted himself to criticise its doings seriously, and yet he was functionary of that government and a model marshal of nobility, and when he drove about he always wore the cockade of office and the cap with the red band. He considered human life only tolerable abroad, and went abroad to stay at every opportunity, and at the same time he carried on a complex and improved system of agriculture in Russia, and with extreme interest followed everything and knew everything that was being done in Russia. He considered the Russian peasant as occupying a stage of development intermediate between the ape and the man, and at the same time in the local assemblies no one was readier to shake hands with the peasants and listen to their opinion. He believed neither in God nor the devil, but was much concerned about the question of the improvement of the clergy and the maintenance of their revenues, and took special trouble to keep up the church in his village. On the woman question he was on the side of the extreme advocates of complete liberty for women, and especially their right to labour. But he lived with his wife on such terms that their affectionate childless home-life was the admiration of everyone, and arranged his wife's life so that she did nothing and could do nothing but share her husband's efforts that her time should pass as happily and as agreeably as possible. If it had not been a characteristic of Levin's to put the most favourable interpretation on people, Sviazhsky's character would have presented no doubt or difficulty to him: he would have said to himself, 'a fool or a knave', and everything would have seemed clear. But he could not say 'a fool', because Sviazhsky was unmistakably clever, and moreover, a highly cultivated man, who was exceptionally modest over his culture. There was not a subject he knew nothing of.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Yes; how can you go alone at night like this?' chimed in the princess. 'Anyway, I'll send Parasha.' Kitty saw that Varenka could hardly restrain a smile at the idea that she needed an escort. 'No, I always go about alone and nothing ever happens to me,' she said, taking her hat. And kissing Kitty once more, without saying what was important, she stepped out courageously with the music under her arm and vanished into the twilight of the summer night, bearing away with her her secret of what was important and what gave her the calm and dignity so much to be envied. XXXIII K ITTY made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this acquaintance, together with her friendship with Varenka, did not merely exercise a great influence on her, it also comforted her in her mental distress. She found this comfort through a completely new world being opened to her by means of this acquaintance, a world having nothing in common with her past, an exalted, noble world, from the height of which she could contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides the instinctive life to which Kitty had given herself up hitherto there was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion, but a religion having nothing in common with that one which Kitty had known from childhood, and which found expression in litanies and all-night services at the Widows' Home, where one might meet one's friends, and in learning by heart Slavonic texts with the priest. This was a lofty, mysterious religion connected with a whole series of noble thoughts and feelings, which one could do more than merely believe because one was told to, which one could love. Kitty found all this out not from words. Madame Stahl talked to Kitty as to a charming child that one looks on with pleasure as on the memory of one's youth, and only once she said in passing that in all human sorrows nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight of Christ's compassion for us no sorrow is trifling—and immediately talked of other things. But in every gesture of Madame Stahl, in every word, in every heavenly—as Kitty called it—look, and above all in the whole story of her life, which she heard from Varenka, Kitty recognised that something 'that was important,' of which, till then, she had known nothing. Yet, elevated as Madame Stahl's character was, touching as was her story, and exalted and moving as was her speech, Kitty could not help detecting in her some traits which perplexed her. She noticed that when questioning her about her family, Madame Stahl had smiled contemptuously, which was not in accord with Christian meekness. She noticed, too, that when she had found a Catholic priest with her, Madame Stahl had studiously kept her face in the shadow of the lamp-shade and had smiled in a peculiar way.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'If you had any sins,' she said, 'they would all be forgiven you for your coming to me and these words.' And Dolly saw that the tears stood in her eyes. She pressed Anna's hand in silence. 'Well, what are these buildings? How many there are of them!' After a moment's silence she repeated her question. 'These are the servants' houses, barns and stables,' answered Anna. 'And there the park begins. It had all gone to ruin, but Alexey had everything renewed. He is very fond of this place, and, what I never expected, he has become intensely interested in looking after it. But his is such a rich nature! Whatever he takes up, he does splendidly. So far from being bored by it, he works with passionate interest. He—with his temperament as I know it—he has become careful and businesslike, a first-rate manager, he positively reckons every penny in his management of the land. But only in that. When it's a question of tens of thousands, he doesn't think of money.' She spoke with that gleefully sly smile with which women often talk of the secret characteristics only known to them—of those they love. 'Do you see that big building? that's the new hospital. I believe it will cost over a hundred thousand; that's his hobby just now. And do you know how it all came about? The peasants asked him for some meadow-land, I think it was, at a cheaper rate, and he refused, and I accused him of being miserly. Of course it was not really because of that, but everything together, he began this hospital to prove, do you see, that he was not miserly about money. C'est une petitesse, if you like, but I love him all the more for it. And now you'll see the house in a moment. It was his grandfather's house, and he has had nothing changed outside.' 'How beautiful!' said Dolly, looking with involuntary admiration at the handsome house with columns, standing out among the different-coloured greens of the old trees in the garden. 'Isn't it fine? And from the house, from the top, the view is wonderful.' They drove into a courtyard strewn with gravel and bright with flowers, in which two labourers were at work putting an edging of stones round the light mould of a flower-bed, and drew up in a covered entry. 'Ah, they're here already!' said Anna, looking at the saddle-horses, which were just being led away from the steps. 'It is a nice horse, isn't it? It's my cob; my favourite. Lead him here and bring me some sugar. Where is the count?' she inquired of two smart footmen who darted out. 'Ah, there he is!' she said, seeing Vronsky coming to meet her with Veslovsky. 'Where are you going to put the princess?' said Vronsky in French, addressing Anna, and without waiting for a reply, he once more greeted Darya Alexandrovna, and this time he kissed her hand.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  They talked of Mihailov and his pictures. The word talent, by which they meant an inborn, almost physical, aptitude apart from brain and heart, and in which they tried to find an expression for all the artist had gained from life, recurred particularly often in their talk, as though it were necessary for them to sum up what they had no conception of, though they wanted to talk of it. They said that there was no denying his talent, but that his talent could not develop for want of education—the common defect of our Russian artists. But the picture of the boys had imprinted itself on their memories, and they were continually coming back to it. 'What an exquisite thing! How he has succeeded in it, and how simply! He doesn't even comprehend how good it is. Yes, I mustn't let it slip; I must buy it,' said Vronsky. XIII M IHAILOV sold Vronsky his picture, and agreed to paint a portrait of Anna. On the day fixed he came and began the work. From the fifth sitting the portrait impressed everyone, especially Vronsky, not only by its resemblance, but by its characteristic beauty. It was strange how Mihailov could have discovered just her characteristic beauty. 'One needs to know and love her as I have loved her to discover the very sweetest expression of her soul,' Vronsky thought, though it was only from this portrait that he had himself learned this sweetest expression of her soul. But the expression was so true that he, and others too, fancied they had long known it. 'I have been struggling on for ever so long without doing anything,' he said of his own portrait of her, 'and he just looked and painted it. That's where technique comes in.' 'That will come,' was the consoling reassurance given him by Golenishtchev, in whose view Vronsky had both talent, and what was most important, culture, giving him a wider outlook on art. Golenishtchev's faith in Vronsky's talent was propped up by his own need of Vronsky's sympathy and approval for his own articles and ideas, and he felt that the praise and support must be mutual. In another man's house, and especially in Vronsky's palazzo, Mihailov was quite a different man from what he was in his studio. He behaved with hostile courtesy, as though he were afraid of coming closer to people he did not respect. He called Vronsky 'your excellency,' and notwithstanding Anna's and Vronsky's invitations, he would never stay to dinner, nor come except for the sittings. Anna was even more friendly to him than to other people, and was very grateful for her portrait. Vronsky was more than cordial with him, and was obviously interested to know the artist's opinion of his picture. Golenishtchev never let slip an opportunity of instilling sound ideas about art into Mihailov.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  We acquire a series of fixed associations towards persons so situated; favorable in the case of the superior, and unfavorable to the inferior. To the strong and laborious man we attach an estimate of greater reward, and feel that to be in his place would be a happier lot than falls to others. Desiring, as we do, from the primary motives of our being, to possess good things, and observing these to come by a man's superior exertions, we feel a respect for such exertion and a wish that it might be ours. We know that we also put forth exertions for our share of good things; and on witnessing others, we are apt to be reminded of ourselves and to make comparisons with ourselves, which comparisons derive their interest from the substantial consequences. Having thus once learned to look at other persons as performing labors, greater or less, and as realizing fruits to accord; being, moreover, in all respects like our fellows,—we find it an exercise neither difficult nor unmeaning to contemplate self as doing work and receiving the reward. . . . As we decide between one man and another,—which is worthier, . . . so we decide between self and all other men; being, however, in this decision under the bias of our own desires." A couple of pages farther on we read: "By the terms Self-complacency, Self-gratulation, is indicated a positive enjoyment in dwelling upon our own merits and belongings. As in other modes, so here, the starting point is the contemplation of excellence or pleasing qualities in another person , accompanied more or less with fondness or love." Self-pity is also regarded by Professor Bain, in this place, as an emotion diverted to ourselves from a more immediate object, "in a manner that we may term fictitious and unreal. Still, as we can view self in the light of another person, we can feel towards it the emotion of pity called forth by others in our situation." This account of Professor Bain's is, it will be observed a good specimen of the old-fashioned mode of explaining the several emotions as rapid calculations of results, and the transfer of feeling from one object to another, associated by contiguity or similarity with the first. Zoological evolutionism, which came up since Professor Bain first wrote, has made us see, on the contrary, that many emotions must be primitively aroused by special objects.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Men of the highest general powers will often forget nothing, however insignificant. One of the most generally accomplished men I know has a memory of this sort. He never keeps written note of anything, yet is never at a loss for a fact which he has once heard. He remembers the old addresses of all his New York friends, living in numbered streets, addresses which they themselves have long since moved away from and forgotten. He says that he should probably recognize an individual fly, if he had seen him thirty years previous—he is, by the way, an entomologist. As an instance of his desultory memory, he was introduced to a certain colonel at a club. The conversation fell upon the signs of age in man. The colonel challenged him to estimate his age. He looked at him, and gave the exact day of his birth, to the wonder of all. But the secret of this accuracy was that, having picked up some days previously an army-register, he had idly turned over its list of names, with dates of birth, graduation, promotions, etc., attached, and when the colonel's name was mentioned to him at the club, these figures, on which he had not bestowed a moment's thought, involuntarily surged up in his mind. Such a memory is of course a priceless boon. [579] Cf. Ebbinghaus: Ueber das Gedächtniss (1885), pp. 67, 45. One may hear a person say: "I have a very poor memory, because I was never systematically made to learn poetry at school." [580] How to Strengthen the Memory; or, The Natural and Scientific Methods of Never Forgetting. By M. H. Holbrook, M.D. New York (no date). [581] Page 30. [582] Op. cit . p. 100. [583] In order to test the opinion so confidently expressed in the text, I have tried to see whether a certain amount of daily training in learning poetry by heart will shorten the time it takes to learn an entirely different kind of poetry. During eight successive days I learned 158 lines of Victor Hugo's 'Satyr.' The total number of minutes required for this was 131 5/6—it should be said that I had learned nothing by heart for many years. I then, working for twenty-odd minutes daily, learned the entire first book of Paradise Lost, occupying 38 days in the process. After this training I went back to Victor Hugo's poem, and found that 158 additional lines (divided exactly as on the former occasion) took me 151 1/2 minutes. In other words, I committed my Victor Hugo to memory before the training at the rate of a line in 50 seconds, after the training at the rate of a line in 57 seconds, just the opposite result from that which the popular view would lead one to expect.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Briefly, then, of two men with the same outward experiences and the same amount of mere native tenacity, the one who thinks over his experiences most , and weaves them into systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory . We see examples of this on every hand. Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits. The college athlete who remains a dunce at his books will astonish you by his knowledge of men's 'records' in various feats and games, and will be a walking dictionary of sporting statistics. The reason is that he is constantly going over these things in his mind, and comparing and making series of them. They form for him not so many odd facts, but a concept-system—so they stick. So the merchant remembers prices, the politician other politicians' speeches and votes, with a copiousness which amazes outsiders, but which the amount of thinking they bestow on these subjects easily explains. The great memory for facts which a Darwin and a Spencer reveal in their books is not incompatible with the possession on their part of a brain with only a middling degree of physiological retentiveness. Let a man early in life set himself the task of verifying such a theory as that of evolution, and facts will soon cluster and cling to him like grapes to their stem. Their relations to the theory will hold them fast; and the more of these the mind is able to discern, the greater the erudition will become. Meanwhile the theorist may have little, if any, desultory memory. Unutilizable facts may be unnoted by him and forgotten as soon as heard. An ignorance almost as encyclopædic as his erudition may coexist with the latter, and hide, as it were, in the interstices of its web. Those who have had much to do with scholars and savants will readily think of examples of the class of mind I mean. In a system, every fact is connected with every other by some thought-relation. The consequence is that every fact is retained by the combined suggestive power of all the other facts in the system, and forgetfulness is well-nigh impossible. The reason why cramming is such a bad mode of study is now made clear. I mean by cramming that way of preparing for examinations by committing 'points' to memory during a few hours or days of intense application immediately preceding the final ordeal, little or no work having been performed during the previous course of the term. Things learned thus in a few hours, on one occasion, for one purpose, cannot possibly have formed many associations with other things in the mind. Their brain-processes are led into by few paths, and are relatively little liable to be awakened again.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  To abstract the ground of either difference or likeness (where it is not ultimate) demands and analysis of the given objects into their parts. So that all that was said of the dependence of analysis upon a preliminary separate acquaintance with the character to be abstracted, and upon its having varied concomitants, finds a place in the psychology of resemblance as well as in that of difference. But when all is said and done about the conditions which favor our perception of resemblance and our abstraction of its ground, the crude fact remains, that some people are far more sensitive to resemblances, and far more ready to point out wherein they consist, than others are . They are the wits, the poets, the inventors, the scientific men, the practical geniuses. A native talent for perceiving analogies is reckoned by Prof. Bain, and by others before and after him, as the leading fact in genius of every order . But as this chapter is already long, and as the question of genius had better wait till Chapter XXII, where its practical consequences can be discussed at the same time, I will say nothing more at present either about it or about the faculty of noting resemblances. If the reader feels that this faculty is having small justice done it at my hands, and that it ought to be wondered at and made much more of than has been done in these last few pages, he will perhaps find some compensation when that later chapter is reached. I think I emphasize it enough when I call it one of the ultimate foundation-pillars of the intellectual life, the others being Discrimination, Retentiveness, and Association. THE MAGNITUDE OF DIFFERENCES. On page 326 I spoke of differences being greater or less, and of certain groups of them being susceptible of a linear arrangement exhibiting serial increase . A series whose terms grow more and more different from the starting point is one whose terms grow less and less like it. They grow more and more like it if you read them the other way. So that likeness and unlikeness to the starting point are functions inverse to each other, of the position of any term in such a series. Professor Stumpf introduces the word distance to denote the position of a term in any such series. The less like is the term, the more distant it is from the starting point.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  The higher poets all use abrupt epithets, which are alike intimate and remote, and, as Emerson says, sweetly torment us with invitations to their inaccessible homes. In these latter instances we must suppose that there is an identical portion in the similar objects, and that its brain-tract is energetically operative, without, however, being sufficiently isolable in its activity as to stand out per se , and form the condition of a distinctly discriminated 'abstract idea.' We cannot even by careful search see the bridge over which we passed from the heart of one representation of that of the next. In some brains, however, this mode of transition is extremely common. It would be one of the most important of physiological discoveries could we assign the mechanical or chemical difference which makes the thoughts of one brain cling close to impartial redintegration, while those of another shoot about in all the lawless revelry of similarity. Why, in these latter brains, action should tend to focalize itself in small spots, while in the others it fills patiently its broad bed, it seems impossible to guess. Whatever the difference may be, it is what separates the man of genius from the prosaic creature of habit and routine thinking. In Chapter XXII we shall need to recur again to this point. ASSOCIATION IN VOLUNTARY THOUGHT. Hitherto we have assumed the process of suggestion of one object by another to be spontaneous. The train of imagery wanders at its own sweet will, now trudging in sober grooves of habit, now with a hop, skip, and jump darting across the whole field of time and space. This is revery, or musing; but great segments of the flux of our ideas consist of something very different from this. They are guided by a distinct purpose or conscious interest. As the Germans say, we nachdenken , or think towards a certain end. It is now necessary to examine what modification is made in the trains of our imagery by the having of an end in view. The course of our ideas is then called voluntary . Physiologically considered, we must suppose that a purpose means the persistent activity of certain rather definite brain-processes throughout the whole course of thought. Our most usual cogitations are not pure reveries, absolute driftings, but revolve about some central interest or topic to which most of the images are relevant, and towards which we return promptly after occasional digressions. This interest is subserved by the persistently active brain-tracts we have supposed. In the mixed associations which we have hitherto studied, the parts of each object which form the pivots on which our thoughts successively turn have their interest largely determined by their connection with some general interest which for the time has seized upon the mind.