The curious conception of Tolstoï's as to the severing and injurious influence of art that does not strive directly to make people more noble, can perhaps be understood only when the collections in the St. Petersburg Hermitage and Alexander Museum are examined. Striking proof will there be found that the enjoyment of art--nay, the understanding of it--need not necessarily go hand-in-hand with humane and moral sentiments. Antiquity and the Renaissance prove that, under certain conditions, inhumanity and scandalous immorality can harmonize very well with the understanding of art, or with, at least, a great readiness to make sacrifices for the sake of it. The inference that the greater refinement of the taste for art is the cause of moral degeneration is not far from the truth. It is quite conceivable from the stand-point of an essentially revolutionary philosophy, framed for the struggle against the demoralizing, violent government of St. Petersburg, since everything that is apparently entitled to respect in this St. Petersburg is unveiled and damned in its nothingness. Thus it is with science--that is to say, a university that does not begin its work by denouncing a despotism only seemingly favorable to civilization; so it is with a fancy for art, which possibly may convince czars and their servants that they also have contributed their mite towards the welfare of mankind.
The stranger who does not see things with the eyes of the passionate philanthropist and patriot, and who when gazing at the master-works of art, does not necessarily think of the depravity of the gatherers of these works, is surely permitted to disregard the association of ideas between art and morality, and to give himself over unconstrainedly to the enjoyment of collections that can hold their own with the best museums of the world. To be sure, Catherine II. was not an exemplary empress or woman, yet by her purchases for the Hermitage she rendered a real service to her country, a service that will ultimately plead for her at the judgment-seat of the world's history. Alexander III. and his house were misfortunes for his country, but the museum that bears his name will keep alive his memory and will cast light of forgiveness on a soul enshrouded in darkness. Besides, it has nowhere been shown that without the diversion of expensive tastes for art, slovenly empresses would have been less slovenly or dull despots less violent. But in the Hermitage one may forget for a couple of hours that he is in the capital of the most unfortunate and the most wretchedly governed of all countries.