Page 1018 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

to educate himself. And he turned to what seemed to him
the very source of culture—the magazines. In old times,
you see, a man who wanted to educate himself—a
Frenchman, for instance—would have set to work to

study all the classics and theologians and tragedians and
historiaris and philosophers, and, you know, all the
intellectual work that came in his way. But in our day he
goes straight for the literature of negation, very quickly
assimilates all the extracts of the science of negation, and
he’s ready. And that’s not all—twenty years ago he would
have found in that literature traces of conflict with
authorities, with the creeds of the ages; he would have
perceived from this conflict that there was something else;
but now he comes at once upon a literature in which the
old creeds do not even furnish matter for discussion, but it
is stated baldly that there is nothing else—evolution,
natural selection, struggle for existence—and that’s all. In
my article I’ve..’
‘I tell you what,’ said Anna, who had for a long while
been exchanging wary glances with Vronsky, and knew
that he was not in the least interested in the education of
this artist, but was simply absorbed by the idea of assisting
him, and ordering a portrait of him; ‘I tell you what,’ she

1017 of 1759