Translated from the Original Manuscript, with an Introduction by AYLMER MAUDE

Art is a human activity, declares Tolstoy. The object of this activity is to transmit to others feelings the artist has experienced. By certain external signs—movements, lines, colors, sounds or arrangements of words—an artist infects other people so that they share his feelings; thus, "art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feeling." Without adequate expression there is no art, for there is no infection, no transference to others of the author's feeling. The test of art is infection. If an author has moved you so that you feel as he felt, if you are so united to him in feeling that it seems to you that he has expressed just what you have long wished to express, the work that has so infected you is a work of art.