The two sides of his nature could and did function separately, but they were never really dissociated. He was that rare thing, an imaginative moralist, a moralist who felt with all the physical, mental and human immediacy of the artist and to whom therefore the quest of perfection in life was the supreme art."
Tolstoy was born into wealth and privilege in 1828, the fourth son of Count Nikolay Tolstoy and his wife, the former Maria Volkonskaya. The Tolstoys were one of the first families to earn the title of "Count," for service to the Russian crown; Leo's mother was related to several aristocratic families and brought the extensive estate of Yasnaya Polyana ("Bright Meadow") to the marriage. Leo Tolstoy was born on this estate, some 130 miles southwest of Moscow, and would spend most of his life there. His mother died shortly after giving birth to her next child, however, and Nikolay Tolstoy died when his youngest son was only nine. Leo and his siblings were given over to the care of several aunts, whose loving natures he immortalized in several of his works. He attended universities in Kazan and St. Petersburg, where he studied languages and law, but left without earning a degree.
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