"Woman is generally so bad that the difference between a good and a bad woman scarcely exists."
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65159
I don't think what you shared is an exhaustive or even a valid answer to "why do people read novels?" It's just one author's thoughts on art, and it's debatable how accurate they are.
I really don't understand why people can't stop thinking that people like Tolstoy, Kant, and Hitler were beyond human beings who weren't absolutely influenced by the common thinking of their time. Almost every great writer/philosopher had massive blind spots that could only be fixed over time.
Yes, the categorical imperative still stands as a sound idea, but Kant also thought African people lacked the natural intelligence and emotional faculties that Europeans possessed. Does not sound that categorical to me if you're willing to consider a race of human beings as subhuman.
The point is that it's not just Tolstoy; a lot of views shared by some of the "greatest men" are absolutely vile garbage, and we must talk about that as well when we talk about them, instead of making an intellectual martyr and using their quotes as if they have any valid objective truth behind them to answer genuine questions.