28 JUNE 1890, Page 45

Sevastopol. By Count Lyof N. Tolstoi. Translated from the Russian

by Isabel F. Hopgood. (Walter Scott.)—A. more striking example of the sombre realism of Tasters work could not be found than this story. Story, indeed, one may say that there is none. It is simply a transcript of the feelings of men in imminent danger of death or dying. We have never seen anything more like the most horrid of dreams than the description of the man who " had been killed on the spot by a splinter of shell in the middle of the breast." A man may be killed on the spot, it seems, and yet go through a long succession of emotions.