BOOKS
467
To this primary interest in men the book owes its most attrac–
tive qualities as a piece of writing and as an interpretation of the
revolutionary movements. In exploring this new world, Wilson has
brought into play his understanding of persons and unfailing sym–
pathy with creative and disinterested minds, which are the finest
qualities of his literary
criti~ism.
The reader is led to the person
and his intimate surroundings as he hears of his theories; and even
these are woven into the narrative as if they were emanations and
experiences of their author, with a physiognomic as well as logical
form. The conditions of intellectual work become as concrete, as
unforgettable, as the moments of action; we watch Michelet writing
history with all the concentration and passion which are attributed
in a later chapter to the leaders of an insurrection. With an admir–
able conciseness, Wilson evokes the individual through familiar
external marks; his reading of well-known photographs and por–
traits, his re-telling of the life-stories, are simply masterly; the
writer's costume, his manner of speech, his imagery, his room, are
all appropriated as expressive signs, and fitted into a larger pattern
of the personality which emerges in the ideas and actions as well.
Every person described is individualized and cleat; and each has
a characteristic and irreplaceable milieu. The description of
Lenin's town and of his family and home is a beautiful and stir–
ring work. I do not know how correct are these characterizations,
but they impose themselves by their concreteness, finesse and sym–
pathy, and by the intelligent correlation with the documented
actions and words of these men, like the great fictional characters
of literature. They are essentially descriptions of what is imme–
diately apparent to the critical and mature observer; the intolerance
and pedantry and awkwardness of Marx, the ruthlessness of Lenin,
belong to these men as evidently as their noblest qualities and are
shown as determined and necessary. Wilson looks always for the
propelling experiences and impulses and points to every trait which
he thinks affected their ideas and actions, as if the revolutionary
movement, and history in general, is not only a product of reason
and social conditions, but also of the peculiarities of the men who
led it. He proceeds from the conviction that the whole human being
is involved in thought and action, that historical effectiveness is .not
simply a matter of intellectual force or will, but of moral qualities
