Tolstoy II:

"The first condition of an author's popularity, [writes T. in his diary], i.e., the way to make himself loved, is the love with which he treats all his characters. That is why Dickens' characters are the friends of all mankind; they serve as a bond between humanity in America and in Petersburg; but Thackeray and Gogol, though faithful to life and artistic, are pitiless and not at all loving."

...the schoolboy efforts of his peasant pupils taught him the fundemental truth that the need to enjoy and serve art was inherent in every human being, and this need had its right and should be satisfied. (234)

Tolstoy, as formerly, made his [diary] an impartial history of events and an inventory of his thoughts and feelings; Sonya, by her own admission, took to her diary when things went wrong, when she felt the need of seeking relief by pouring out her dissatisfactions and sorrow in its pages. The result is that her diary more frequently presents a dark, one-sided picture of her existence. (280)