ing and revising his preconceived theories regarding them.
Sergyeï Ivanovitch was the opposite. Just exactly as he liked and enjoyed the country life for its contrariety to that which he did not like, so he liked the peasantry for their contrariety to that class of men which he did not like, and in exactly the same way he knew the people as beings opposed to men in general. His methodical mind clearly differentiated the definite forms of life among the peasantry, deducing it partly from the life of the peasantry itself, but principally from its contrarieties. He never changed his opinions in regard to the people and his sympathetic relationship to them.
In the discussions which arose between the brothers in consequence of their divergence of views, Sergyeï Ivanovitch always won the victory because he had definite opinions concerning the people, their character, peculiarities, and tastes; while Konstantin Levin, ceaselessly modifying his, was easily convicted of contradicting himself.
Sergyeï Ivanovitch looked on his brother as a splendid fellow, whose heart was bien placé, as he expressed it in French, but whose mind, though quick and active, was open to the impressions of the moment, and, therefore, full of contradictions. With the condescension of an elder brother, he sometimes explained to him the real meaning of things; but he could not take genuine pleasure in discussing with him, because his opponent was so easy to vanquish.
Konstantin Levin looked on his brother as a man of vast intelligence and learning, endowed with extraordinary faculties, most advantageous to the community at large; but as he advanced in life, and learned to know him better, he sometimes asked himself, in the secret chambers of his heart, if this devotion to the general interests, which he felt that he himself entirely lacked, was really a good quality, or rather a lack of something — not a lack of good-natured, upright, benevolent wishes and tastes, but the lack of the motive power of life,
