William Dean Howells, Tolstoyan

From Louis J. Budd, "William Dean Howells' Debt to Tolstoy" (American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 9, No. 4, Dec. 1950, pp. 292-301):

"The most eminent American admirer of Tolstoy was the novelist and essayist, William Dean Howells ... During the 1880's, when he first read Tolstoy, Howells stood at the height of his literary career ... The Russian's creed directly stimulated him to reassert the religion of humanity which he had first acquired during his youth and early manhood. Although the intellectual roots of Howells' mature radicalism are traceable to many sources, the reading of Tolstoy was the catalytic agent which dissipated the clouds of bewilderment and doubt in the American's mind" (292).

Follow the Shaykh

Because I have a weakness for irascible genius, Lev Tolstoy is my Shaykh.

Dostoevsky's genius challenges me and haunts me, but I cannot follow him into Orthodoxy. Tolstoy was a heretic, and heretics make the best Shaykhs.

Follow the Shaykh.