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The Journal of Leo Tolstoi First. Volume—1895-1899

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10) I have thought much about God, about the essence of my life, and it seemed I only doubted one and the other and believed in my own conclusions; and then, one time, not long ago, I simply had the desire to lean upon my faith in God and in the indestructibility of my soul, and to my astonishment I felt so firm and calm a confidence, as I have never felt before. So that all my doubts and scrutinisings have evidently, not only not weakened my faith, but have strengthened it to an enormous degree.

11) Reason is not given that we should recognise what we ought to love; this it won’t disclose; but only for this: to show what we ought not to love.

12) As in each piece of handiwork, the principal art lies not in the regular making of certain things anew, but in the ever bettering of the inevitable faults of a wrong and ruined work, so even in the business of life, the principal wisdom is not how to begin to act and how to lead life correctly, but how to better faults, how to liberate oneself from errors and seductions.

13) Happiness is the satisfaction of the requirements of a man’s being living from birth to death in this world only; but the good is the satisfaction of the requirements of the eternal essence living in man.

14) The essence of the teachings of Christ consists in this, that man ought to know who he is; that he should understand, like a bird which does not use its wings and runs on the land, that he is not a mortal animal, dependent on the conditions of the world, but like a bird which has understood that it has wings and has faith in them, he should understand that he himself was never born and never died and always is, and passes through this world in one of the innumerable forms of life to fulfil the will of Him who sent him into this life.

Dec. 8. Moscow. If I live.

Mascha33 is with Ilia,34 a loving letter from her to-day.

To-day December 23. Moscow.

It is long since I have made an entry. On the 30th, the Chertkovs35 came. It is two days since Kenworthy arrived. He is very pleasant…

Have continued to write the Declaration – am progressing. Off and on, I think out the drama,36 and yesterday I raved about it all night. I am not well; a bad cold in the head, influenza. Because of the letter to the Englishman, I began also a letter on the collision between England and America.37

Have been thinking during this time:

1) I have been thinking especially clearly of that which I have already said many times; that all the evil in the world comes only from this, that people look upon themselves, upon their own personality, as a worthy object of their conscious life – upon themselves or upon a group of personalities, it is all the same.

As long as a man lives for himself unconsciously, he does no harm. If there is a struggle, then the struggle is an unconscious one which is ended at once when the struggle with surroundings is ended; man adjusts himself to it or he goes under, and this struggle is neither cruel nor is it an evil one. The struggle begins to be cruel only when man directs his consciousness upon it, prepares it, strengthens and multiplies its energy tenfold and hundredfold.

As Pascal says: there are three kinds of people; one kind know nothing and sit quietly, and just as quiet are those who know; but there are a middle kind who don’t know but believe they do; from them comes all the evil in the world. They are the people in whom consciousness has awakened, but they don’t know how to use it.

2) The whole thing lies in this – that you should always remember who you are. There is no situation so difficult, from which the way out would not immediately offer itself, if you only would remember that you are not a temporary, material manifestation, but an eternal omnipresent being. “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me shall never die, and though he were dead yet shall he live. Believest thou this?”

I walked on the street. A wretched beggar approached me. I forgot who I was and passed by. And then suddenly I remembered, and just as naturally as the hungry begin to eat and the tired sit down, I turned back and handed him something. It is the same with the temptation to quarrel, to insult, to be vain.

3) One can not voluntarily cease to remain awake, i. e. to fall asleep. Just as little can one voluntarily cease to live. Life is more important than the will, than desire. (Unclear.)

4) Receive with thankfulness the enjoyments of the flesh – all that you meet on the way, if they are not sinful – in short, if they do not go against your consciousness, if they do not make it suffer. But use the efforts of your will, your liberty, only to serve God.

I just wrote a letter to Crosby.38 He is working in America.

Dec. 24. Moscow. If I live.

Yesterday I received the “Open Letter” of Spielhagen, the Socialist, which appeared in the newspapers with regard to Drozhin.39

 

1896

January 23. Moscow.

Just a month that I made no entries. During this time I wrote a letter about patriotism40 and a letter to Crosby41 and here now for two weeks I have been writing the drama. I wrote three acts abominably. I thought to make an outline so as to form a charpente. I have little hope of success.

Chertkov and Kenworthy went away the 7th. Sonya went to Tver to Andrusha.42 To-day Nagornov43 died. I am again a little indisposed.

I jotted down during this time:

1) A true work of art – a contagious one – is produced only when the artist seeks, strives. In poetry this passion for representing that which is, comes from the fact that the artist hopes that having seen clearly and having fixed that which is, he will understand the meaning of that which is.

2) In every art there are two departures from the way, vulgarity and artificiality. Between them both there is only a narrow path. And this narrow path is outlined by impulse. If you have impulse and direction, you pass by both dangers. Of the two, the more terrible is artificiality.

3) It is impossible to compel reason to examine and clarify that which the heart does not wish.

4) It is bad when reason wishes to give the meaning of virtue to selfish efforts.

Kudinenko44 was here. A remarkable man. N. took the oath and is serving.45 A letter from Makovitsky46 with an article on the Nazarenes.47

Jan. 24. Moscow. If I live.

Jan. 25. Moscow.

During these two days the chief event was the death of Nagornov. Always new and full of meaning is death. It occurred to me: they represent death in the theatre. Does it produce 1/1,000,000 of that impression which the nearness of a real death produces?

I continue writing the drama. I have written four acts. All bad. But it is beginning to resemble a real thing.

Jan. 26. Mosc. If I live.

January 26. Moscow.

I am alive, but I don’t live. Strakhov – to-day I heard of his death.48 To-day they buried Nagornov – and that is news. I lay down to sleep, but could not sleep, and there appeared before me so clearly and brightly, an understanding of life whereby we would feel ourselves to be travellers. Before us lies a stage of the road with the same well-known conditions. How can one walk along that road otherwise than eagerly, gaily, friendly, and actively together, not grieving over the fact that you yourself are going away or that others are going ahead of you thither, where we shall again be still more together.

To-day I wrote a postscript to the letter to Crosby. A good letter from Kenworthy. Unpleasantness with N. He is a journalist.

Jan. 26 [27?]. Moscow. If I live.

Almost a month that I have made no entries. To-day, Feb. 13, Moscow.

I wanted to go to the Olsuphievs.49… There is much bustle here and it takes up much time. I sit down late to my work and therefore write little. I finished somehow the fifth act of the drama and took up Resurrection. I read over eleven chapters and am gradually advancing. I corrected the letter to Crosby.

An event – an important one – Strakhov’s death, and something else – Davydov’s conversation with the Emperor.50....

The article by Ertel51 that the efforts of the liberals are useful, and also the letter by Spielhagen on the same theme,52 provoke me. But I can not, I must not write. I have no time. The letters from Sopotsko53 and Zdziekhovsky54 on the Orthodox Church and on the Catholic, provoke me on the other hand. However, I shall hardly write. But here yesterday I received a letter from Grinevich’s55 mother on the religious bringing up of children. That I must do. At least I must use all my strength to do this.

 

Very much music – it is useless… As regards religion, I am very cool at present.

Thought during this time (much I have forgotten and have not written down):

1) Oh, not to forget death for a moment, into which at any moment you can fall! If we would only remember that we are not standing upon an even plain (if you think we are standing so, then you are only imagining that those who have gone away have fallen overboard and you yourself are afraid that you will fall overboard), but that we are rolling on, without stopping, running into each other, getting ahead and being got ahead of, yonder behind the curtain which hides from us those who are going away, and will hide us from those who remain. If we remember that always, then, how easy and joyous it is to live and roll together, yonder down the same incline, in the power of God, with Whom we have been and in Whose power we are now and will be afterwards and forever. I have been feeling this very keenly.

2) There is no more convincing proof of the existence of God, than the faculty of the soul by which we can transport ourselves into other beings. Out of this faculty flows both love and reason, but neither one nor the other is in us, but they are outside of us and we only coincide with them. (Unclear.)

3) The power to kill oneself is free play given to people. God did not want slaves in this life, but free workers. If you remain in this life, then it means that its conditions are advantageous to you. If advantageous – then work. If you go away from the conditions here, if you kill yourself, then the same thing will be put before you again there. So there is nowhere to go.

It would be good to write the history of what a man lives through in this life who committed suicide in a past life; how, coming up against the same requirements which were placed before him in the other life, he comes to the realisation that he must fulfil them. And in this life he is more intelligent than in the others, remembering the lesson given him.

4) How does it happen that a clever, educated man believes in the nonsensical? Man thinks that which his heart desires. Only if his heart desires the truth, and only if it does, will he think the truth. But if his heart desires earthly pleasures and peace, he will think of that which will bring him earthly pleasures and peace or still something else. But as it is not an attribute of man to have earthly pleasures and peace, he will think falsely; and to be able to think falsely he will hypnotise himself.

(Unclear, not good.)

Feb. 14. M. If I live.

To-day February 22. Nicholskoe, at the Olsuphievs. 56

It is already more than a week that I feel depressed in spirit. No life; I can not work on anything. Father of my life and of all life! If my work is already finished here, as I am beginning to think, and the ending of my spiritual life, which I am beginning to feel, means a transfer into that other life – that I am already beginning to live there and that here these remnants are being taken away little by little – then show it to me more clearly that I may not seek and weary myself. Otherwise it seems to me that I have many well-thought plans, yet I have no means, not only for carrying them through – this I know, I ought not to think of – but even to do something good, something pleasing to Thee as long as I live here. Or give me strength to work with the consciousness of serving Thee. Still, Thy will be done. If only I always felt that life consisted only in the fulfilment of Thy will, I would not doubt. But doubt comes because I bite the bit and don’t feel the reins.

It is now 2 o’clock. I am going to dinner. I took a walk, slept in the morning, read Trilby. And I want to sleep all the time.

During this time, what has happened? Almost nothing. I thought on the Declaration of Faith.

If I live. February 23. Nicholskoe.

To-day February 27. Nicholskoe.

Am writing the drama, it moves very stiffly. Indeed I don’t even know if I am progressing or not… I am very comfortable here; the important thing – it is quiet.

Read Trilby– poor. Wrote letters to Chertkov, Schmidt,57 Kenworthy. Read Corneille – instructive.

Have been thinking:

1) I made a note that there are two arts. Now thinking it over, I don’t find a clear expression of my thought. Then I thought that there was an art, as they rightly characterise it, which grew from play, from the need of every creature to play. The play of the calf is jumping, the play of man is a symphony, a picture, a poem, a novel.

This is one kind of art, the art of play, of thinking out new plays, producing old ones and inventing new. That is a good thing, useful and valuable because it increases man’s joys. But it is clear that it is possible to occupy oneself with play only when sated. Thus society can only occupy itself with art, when all its members are sated. But as long as all its members are not sated, there can not be real art, there will be an art of the overfed, a deformed one, and an art of the hungry ones – rough and poor, just as it is now. And therefore, in the first kind of art – of play – only that part is of value which is attainable to all, which increases the joys of all.

If it is like this, then it is not a bad thing, especially if it does not demand an increase of toil on the part of the oppressed, as happens now.

(This could and should be expressed better.)

But there is yet another art which calls forth in man better and higher feelings. I wrote this just now – something I have said many times – and I think it isn’t true. Art is only one and consists in this: to increase the sinless general joys accessible to all – the good of man. A nice building, a gay picture, a song, a story give a little good; the awakening of religious feelings, of the love of good brought forth by a drama, a picture, a song – give great good.

The 2nd thing that I have been thinking about art, is that nowhere is conservatism so harmful as in art. Art is one of the manifestations of the spiritual life of man, and therefore, as when an animal is alive, it breathes and discharges the products of its breathing, so when humanity is alive, it manifests activity in art. And therefore, at every given moment it must be contemporaneous – the art of our time. One ought only to know where it is (not in the decadence of music, poetry, or the novel); and one must seek it not in the past, but in the present. People who wish to show themselves connoisseurs of art and who therefore praise the past classic art and insult the present, only show by this, that they have no feeling for art.

3) Rachinsky58 says: “Notice that contemporaneous with the spread of the use of narcotics, since the 17th century, the astounding progress of science began, and especially of the natural ones.” Is it not because of this, I say to him, that the false direction of science has come, the studying of that which is not necessary to man, but is only an object for idle curiosity, or when useful, is not the only thing really necessary? Is it not because of this that from that time on there was neglected the one thing that was necessary, i.e. the settling of moral questions and their application to life?

4) What is the good? I only know a word in Russian which defines this idea. The good is the real good, the good for all, le veritable bien, le bien de tous, what is good for everybody.59

5) Men, in struggling with untruth and superstition, often console themselves with the quantity of superstition they have destroyed. This is not right. It is not right to calm oneself until all that is contradictory to reason and demands credulence is destroyed. Superstition is like a cancer. Everything must be cleaned out if one undertakes an operation. But if a little bit is left, everything will grow from it again.

6) The historic knowledge of how different myths and beliefs arose among peoples in different places and in different times ought to, it seems, destroy the faith that these myths and beliefs which have been inoculated in us from our infancy, constitute the absolute truth; but nevertheless, so-called educated people believe in them. How superficial then, is the education of so-called educated people!

7) To-day at dinner there was talk about a boy with vicious inclinations who was expelled from school, and about how good it would be to give him over to a reformatory.

It is exactly what a man does who lives a bad life, harmful to his health, and who, when he becomes ill, turns to the doctor so that the latter may cure him, but has no idea that the illness was given to him as a beneficial indicator that his whole life is bad and that he ought to change it. The same thing is true with the illnesses in our society; every ill member of society does not remind us that the whole life of our society is irregular and that we ought to change it. But we think that for every such ill member, there is or ought to be, an institution freeing us from this member or even bettering him.

Nothing hampers the progress of humanity so much as this false conviction. The more ill the society, the more institutions there are for the healing of symptoms and the less anxiety for changing the entire life.

It is now 10 o’clock in the evening. I am going to supper. I want to work very much, but am without intellectual energy; a great weakness, yet I want to work terribly. If God would only give it to-morrow.

Feb. 28. Nicholskoe. If I live.

To-day March 6. Nicholskoe.

All this time I have felt weakness and intellectual apathy. I am working on the drama very slowly. Much has become clear. But there isn’t one scene with which I am fully satisfied.

To-day I was about to plan something silly: to write out an outline of the Declaration of Faith. Of course it didn’t go. In the same way I began and dropped a letter to the Italians.60

During this time I jotted down:

1) Corneille writes in his Préface to Menteur on art, that its aim is a diversion, “divertir,” but that it must not be harmful, and if possible, it ought to be educationally enlightening.

2) At supper there was a discussion on heredity: they say vicious people are born from an alcoholic … (I can’t clearly express my thought and will put it by.)

3) Something very important. I lay and was almost asleep, suddenly something seemed to tear in my heart. It occurred to me: that is the way death comes from heart failure; and I remained calm – I felt neither grief nor joy, but blessedly calm – whether here or there, I know that it is well with me, that things are as they ought to be, just like a child, tossed in the arms of its mother, does not stop smiling from joy for it knows that it is in her loving arms.

And the thought came to me: why is it so now and was not so before? Because before, I did not live the whole of life, but lived only an earthly life. In order to believe in immortality, one must live an immortal life here. One can walk with one’s feet and not see the precipice before one, over which it is impossible to cross, and one can rise on one’s wings…61

(It isn’t going and I don’t feel like thinking.)

March 7, 1896. Nicholskoe. If I live.

To-day May 2. Yasnaya Polyana.

It is almost two months since I have made an entry. All this time I lived in Moscow. Of important events there were: a getting closer to the scribe Novikov62 who changed his life on account of my books which his brother, a lackey, received from his mistress abroad. A hot-blooded youth. Also his brother, a working man, asked for “What is my Faith?” and Tania63 sent him to Mme. Kholevinsky.64 They took Mme. Kholevinsky to prison. The prosecuting attorney said that they ought to go after me. All this together made me write a letter to the ministers of Justice and the Interior in which I begged them to transfer their prosecution to me.65

All this time I wrote on the Declaration of Faith. I made little progress. Chertkov, Posha Biriukov were here and went away. My relations with people are good. I have stopped riding the bicycle. I wonder how I could have been so infatuated.

I heard Wagner’s Siegfried.66 I have many thoughts in connection with this and other things. In all I have jotted down 20 thoughts in my notebook.

Still another important event – the work of African Spier.67 I just read through what I wrote in the beginning of this notebook. At bottom, it is nothing else than a short summary of all of Spier’s philosophy which I not only had not read at that time, but about which I had not the slightest idea. This work clarified my ideas on the meaning of life remarkably, and in some ways strengthened them. The essence of his doctrine is that things do not exist, but only our impressions which appear to us in our conception as objects. Conception (Vorstellung) has the quality of believing in the existence of objects. This comes from the fact that the quality of thinking consists in attributing an objectivity to impressions, a substance, and a projecting of them into space.

May 3. Y. P.

Let me write down anything. Am indisposed. Weakness and physical apathy. But think and feel keenly. Yesterday at least, I wrote a few letters: to Spier,68 Shkarvan, Myasoyedov,69 Perer, Sverbeev.70

I am reading Spier all the time, and the reading provokes a mass of thoughts.

Let me write out something at least from my 21 notes.

To-day I worked on the Declaration of Faith.

1) “Come and dwell in us and cleanse us of all evil” … On the contrary: Cleanse thy soul of evil thyself and He will come and dwell in thee. He only waits for this. Like water he flows into thee in the measure as room is freed. “Dwell in us.” How agonisingly lonely it is without Thee – this I experienced these days and how peaceful, firm and joyous, needing nothing and no one when with Thee. Do not leave me!

I can not pray. His tongue is different from that which I speak, but He will understand and translate it into His own when I say: “Help me, come to me, do not leave me!”

And here I have fallen into a contradiction. I say you have to cleanse yourself, then He will come. But I, not yet having cleansed myself, call upon Him.

May 4. If I still live here, Y. P.

May 5. Y. P.

The same general despair. And I am sad. There is one cause; the higher moral requirement that I put forward. In its name I have rejected everything that is beneath it. But it was not followed. Fifteen years ago I proposed giving away the greater part of the property and to live in four rooms. Then they would have an ideal…

To-day I rode past Gill.71 I thought: no undertaking is profitable with a small amount of capital. The more capital, the more profits; the less expenses. But from this it in no way follows that, as Marx says, capitalism will lead to socialism. Perhaps it will lead to it, but to one with force. The workingmen will be compelled to work together, and they will work less and the pay will be more, but there will be the same slavery. It is necessary that people work freely in common, that they learn to work for each other, but capitalism doesn’t teach them that; on the contrary, it teaches them envy, greed, selfishness. Therefore, through a forced uniting brought about by capitalism, the material condition of the workers can be bettered, but their contentment can in no way be established. Contentment can only be established through the free union of the workers. And for this it is necessary to learn how to unite, to perfect oneself morally, to willingly serve others without being hurt when not receiving a return. And this can’t in any way be learned under the capitalistic, competitive system, but under an entirely different one.

I sleep alone downstairs.

To-morrow, May 6th, Y. P.

To-day, May 9, Y. P.

Up to now, I haven’t yet written out all that I had to. Have been continually indisposed. Notwithstanding this, I work in the mornings. To-day, it seemed to me I advanced very much. Our people have gone away, some to the coronation, others to Sweden.72 I am alone with Masha; she has a sore throat. I am well.

May 10, If I live. Y. P.

To-day, May 11, Y. P.

Sonya arrived from Moscow. I continue to write the Declaration of Faith. It seems as if I were weakening. To-day I received a letter from N, a tangled up revolutionist. In the evening I rode horseback to Yasenki73 and thought:

I have not yet written out everything from my notebooks. I will jot down at least this, the more so since, when it came into my head it seemed to me very important. Namely:

1) Spier says we know only sensations. It is true, the material of our knowledge is sensations. But one must ask; why variation of sensations (even of one and the same sense of sight or touch). He (Spier) insists too much that corporeality is an illusion, and does not answer the question: why variation of sensations? It is not bodies that make variation of sensations, I agree to this, but it is just such beings as we, who must be the cause of these sensations.

I know that what he recognises as our being he recognises as a unit. Good. Admitting it is a unit, then it is a divided off, broken off unit, and I am a unit being only within certain limits. And these limits of my being are the limits of other beings. Or, one being is outlined by limits and these limits create sensations, i. e., the material of knowledge. There are no bodies, bodies are illusions, but other beings are not illusions and I recognise them through sensations. Their activity produces sensations in me and I conclude that the same effect is produced in them by my activity. When I receive sensations from a man with whom I come in contact, it can be understood; but when I receive sensations from the earth upon which I fall, from the sun which warms me, what is it that produces these sensations in me? Probably the activities of beings whose life I do not understand; but I recognise only a part of them like the flea on my body. Touching the earth, feeling the warmth of the sun, my limits come in contact with the limits of the sun. I am in the world (I project this into space. I can not do it otherwise though it is not so in reality) like a cell, not an immovable one, but one wandering and touching by his limits, not only the limits of other cells of the same kind, but other enormous bodies.

Better still, not to project this into space; I act and am acted upon by the greatest variety of beings; or, my division of a unit being associates with other divisions of the most various kinds.

(What a lot of nonsense!)

May 12, Y. P. If I live.

Pentecost. It is cold, damp, and not a leaf on the trees.

To-day already, May 16, Y. P. Morning.

I can not write my Declaration of Faith. It is unclear, metaphysical, and whatever good there is in it, I spoil. I am thinking of beginning it all from the beginning again or to call a stop and get to work on a novel or a drama.

N.74 was here; it was a difficult love test. I passed it only outwardly and even then badly. If the examiner had gone along thoroughly, skipping about, I would have failed shamefully.

A beautiful article by Menshikov, “The Blunders of Fear.”75 How joyous! I can almost die, even absolutely, and yet it always seems as if there is something still to be done. Do it and the end will take care of itself. If you are no longer fit for the work, you will be changed and a new one will be sent and you will be sent to another work. If only one rises in work!

Strakhov Th. A.76 was here. The other one, N.,77 came to me in my sleep. I had a talk with him78 about the Declaration of Faith. In speaking to him I felt how hazy was the desire for the good in itself. And I corrected it this way:

1) A man at a certain period of his development awakens to a consciousness of his life. He sees that everything about him lives (and he himself lived like that before the awakening of his reason) without knowing its life. Now that he has learned that he lives, he understands that force which gives life to the whole world and in his consciousness he coincides with it, but being limited by his separate being (his organism), it seems to him that the purpose of this force which gives life to the world, is the life of his separate being.

(I thought that I would write it clearly and again I am confused; – evidently I am not ready.)

Life is the desire for the good. (Everything that lives, lives only because it desires the good; that which does not desire the good, does not live.)

Man, when awakened to a reasoning consciousness, is conscious of life in himself, i. e. of the desire for the good. But since this consciousness is engendered in the separate bodily being of man, since man learns that life is the desire for the good when he is already separated from others by his bodily being, therefore, in the first awakening of man to a reasoning consciousness, it seems to him that life, i. e. the desire for the good which he recognises in himself, has for its object his separate bodily being. And man begins to live consciously for the good of his separate being, begins to use that reason of his which revealed to him the essence of all life; the desire for the good, in order to secure the good for his own separate being.

But the longer a man lives, the more obvious it becomes to him that his purpose is unattainable. And therefore, while he has not yet made clear to himself his error, even before he recognises by reason the impossibility of the good for a separate personality, man knows by experience and feeling the error of activity which is directed to the good of his own separate personality and he naturally strives that his life, his desire for the good, be drawn away from his own personality and brought over to other things; to comrades, friends, family, society.

33Maria Lvovna Tolstoi (1872–1906), second daughter of Tolstoi, afterwards married to Count N. L. Obolensky.
34Count Ilya Lvovich Tolstoi (born 1866), second son of Tolstoi. Has written a book, My Recollections (Moscow, 1914).
35Vladimir Grigorevich Chertkov and his wife, Anna Constantinovna (born Dieterichs). V. G. Chertkov made the acquaintance of Tolstoi in 1883. For biographical information about him see under “Biography of L. N. Tolstoy” by P. Biriukov (Volume II, 1913) and also in the pamphlet, Tolstoi and Chertkov, by P. A. Boulanger (Moscow, 1911) and in the essay of A. M. Khiriakov: “Who Is Chertkov?” (Kievski Mysl, 1910, No. 333, December 2nd).
36Soon Tolstoi began this drama (see entry of ), which he called And Light Lights Up Darkness. This drama, having to a great extent a biographic character, portrays the torturing condition of a man who has gone through an inner religious crisis, and who lives with his family which, not understanding him, interferes with his attempts to change his life according to the truth revealed to him. This was first printed with a great many censor deletions in The Posthumous Literary Works of L. N. Tolstoi (edited by A. L. Tolstoi, 1911, Volume II).
37The Englishman, John Manson, came to Tolstoi with a request for his opinion on the collision between the United States and England on account of the boundaries of Venezuela. Tolstoi answered by an extensive letter which was published under the title, “Patriotism or Peace?” and printed abroad (by Deibner in Berlin, and others.) It was not printed in Russia.
38Ernest Crosby (1856–1907), an American social-worker, a poet and writer. When he was a representative of the United States in the International Court in Egypt, he read Tolstoi’s On Life, which caused an upheaval in his soul. As a result, he left the Government service and devoted his life to the propaganda of the social-religious views of Tolstoi and the social-economic views of Henry George. He founded The Social Reform League, the object of which was the discussing of the problems of reorganisation of contemporary life on the basis of justice and equality, and the furthering of the actual realisation of this reorganisation.
39E. N. Drozhin, a district school teacher, in 1891, refused military service at the recruiting in the city of Sudzha in the Province of Kursk. He was sentenced to be sent to a disciplinary battalion and stayed fifteen months in the Voronezh disciplinary battalion. Here he fell ill of consumption and the doctors pronounced him unfit to continue military service, upon which he was transferred to the state’s prison to finish his sentence. He died in the Voronezh prison on January 27, 1894, from inflammation of the lungs which he contracted at the time of his transfer … from the disciplinary regiment to the prison. The story of his refusal from military service is described in detail in the book by E. I. Popov: Life and Death of E. N. Drozhin, 1866–1894, published by The Free Press, England, 1899. Tolstoi wrote an appendix to this book in which he expressed the opinion that such people like Drozhin “by their activity help…” In reference to this article the well-known German writer, Frederick Spielhagen, printed an open letter to Count Leo Tolstoi in the newspapers, in which he considered Tolstoi guilty of Drozhin’s death, a useless one, according to Spielhagen, for the abolition of war and the establishment of universal peace. This letter was translated into Russian in 1896 and appeared as a separate pamphlet.
40See .
41A voluminous letter devoted to the problem of non-resistance to evil by violence and the relation of contemporary American writers to it.
42Count Andrei Lvovich Tolstoi, born 1877, fourth son of Tolstoi. In this year he served in the Tver military as a volunteer (before the prescribed age).
43Nicholai Michailovich Nagornov, husband of Tolstoi’s niece, Varvara Valerianovna. In the letter to A. K. Chertkov of January 13, 1896, Tolstoi wrote: “We had a death lately. Nagornov died, the husband of my niece. She loved him passionately and they lived together remarkably happily … no one knows anything of him, but the good… My heart feels solemn and good because of this death.”
44Fedior Kudinenko, a peasant, a co-thinker of Tolstoi, a former gendarme.
45See .
46Dushan Petrovich Makovitsky (Dušan Makovický), a Slovak, who later became one of the closest friends and followers of Tolstoi, spent six years in Yasnaya Polyana from the end of 1904 to the day Tolstoi left, in the capacity of family doctor, and was near Tolstoi until the latter’s death. At this time he lived in his native land, in Hungary, taking part in the publication of translations into the Slavonian of Tolstoi’s books and of writers near to him in spirit. The article here mentioned is “Instances of Refusal from Military Service among the Sect of the Nazarenes, in Hungary.” Printed in Leaflets of the Free Press, England, 1898, No. I.
47The Nazarenes, a sect spread in Hungary, Chorvatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Switzerland and the United States, whose members refuse military service.
48Nicholai Nicholaievich Strakhov (1828–1896), a friend of the Tolstoi family, a noted writer and philosopher, highly valued by Tolstoi as a man and a literary critic. He had an extensive correspondence with Tolstoi, which was published by the Tolstoi Museum Society in Petrograd, 1914.
49The family of the Counts Olsuphiev was very much liked by Tolstoi. This is what he wrote about them to V. G. Chertkov on February 9, 1896: “They are such very simple and good people, that the difference between their opinion and mine, and not the difference but the non-recognition of that by which I live, does not bother me. I know that they cannot, but that they want to be good and that they have gone as far as they could in that direction.”
50Nicholai Vasilevich Davydov, an old friend of the Tolstoi family, being appointed at this time President of the Tula District Court, was presented to the Emperor and had a long conversation with him about Tolstoi, answering the questions asked him by the Emperor. At present, N. V. Davydov is President of the Tolstoi Society in Moscow.
51Alexander Ivanovich Ertel (1855–1908), a well-known writer, author of the novel The Gardenins and other stories and novels. The essay by Ertel which Tolstoi mentions was published in Nedielia in 1896, No. III, under the title, “Is Russian Society Declining?” He objected to Tolstoi who said in the article “Shameful” that one ought not to ask about the abolition of corporal punishment, but “one must and ought only to denounce such a thing.” “The way of denunciation and repentance is tested and is being tested – ” wrote Ertel, “but in itself it is not sufficient for successful struggle against evil. For the greatest effectiveness in this struggle of changes, the judicial path of ‘petitions, declarations and addresses,’ deserves every kind of sympathy from the side of historical rationalism as well as from the Christian point of view.” Later Tolstoi, highly appreciating the popular style of Ertel, wrote a preface to the posthumous edition of his works, Moscow, 1909.
52See .
53M. A. Sopotsko, at one time in the beginning of the Nineties shared some of Tolstoi’s views in relation to the outer life, but never understood the essence of his religious philosophy. Later Sopotsko became a supporter of Orthodoxy and frequently attacked Tolstoi and his friends in print.
54Marian Zdziechowski, a professor in the Cracow University, a well-known social worker. In the Sieverni Viestnik for the year 1895, No. 7, under the pseudonym M. Ursin, he contributed an article: “The Religious Political Ideals of Polish Society.” In respect to this article Tolstoi wrote him a long letter which was printed abroad and later was reprinted in the New Collection of Letters of L. N. Tolstoi, collected by P. A. Sergienko (published by Okto, 1911), from which by order of the Moscow Court it was deleted. After this letter M. E. Zdziechowski wrote several times to Tolstoi on the problems of Catholicism, but to those letters, mentioned in the Journal, Tolstoi evidently answered by a personal conversation during the former’s visit to Yasnaya Polyana in the summer of 1896.
55In her letter addressed to M. L. Tolstoi, Vera Stepanovna Grinevich touched most seriously and deeply upon the fundamental problems concerning the religious upbringing of children. This letter produced a very strong impression on Tolstoi and he intended to answer it in detail, but other work drew him away from accomplishing this resolution. The letter of V. S. Grinevich and the letter to her by M. L. Tolstoi and V. G. Chertkov are printed in her book: The New School-family and the Causes of its Origin.
56Nicholskoe, an estate of Count Olsuphiev near Moscow, close to the station of Podsolnechnaia on the Nicholai railroad.
57Eugene Heinrich Schmidt, a German-Hungarian writer, resembling in some respects the philosophy of Tolstoi. In the Nineties he issued a magazine in Budapest: Die Religion des Geistes, and a newspaper with a Christian anarchical tendency: Ohne Staat. In 1901 he printed a book in Leipzig, Tolstoi, His Meaning to Our Civilization (see also his article on the cultural significance of the works of Leo Tolstoi, printed in the International Tolstoi Almanac by P. A. Sergienko, published by Kniga, 1909.)
58Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky (1836–1902), a celebrated worker for popular education, who sacrificed his lectures in the Moscow University for his favourite occupation of teaching the peasant children in the village schools to write and read. A relative to Tolstoi on account of the first wife of his son, Sergei Lvovich, and personally acquainted with Tolstoi as early as the beginning of the Sixties.
59Written originally in English.
60The letter was called forth by the Italian-Abyssinian war, which was then going on. The rather extensive beginning of this letter has been preserved, but up to now has not been published anywhere.
61Here follow words that have been crossed out. Note made by Prince N. L. Obolensky in the copy in possession of the editors.
62Michail Petrovich Novikov, a peasant of the Province of Tula, who served a year as an army scribe in one of the regiments stationed in Moscow. After his acquaintance with Tolstoi he suffered much because of his endeavour to realise his beliefs in his life. A gifted writer.
63Countess Tatiana Lvovna Tolstoi (born 1864), the eldest daughter of Tolstoi. In the year 1899 she married M. S. Sukhotin.
64Maria Michailovna Kholevinsky, a woman doctor, living in Tula. By Administrative order, after the event mentioned in the Journal, she was exiled to Orenburg.
65This letter, sent to both ministers (I. L. Goremykin and N. V. Muraviev) and to the same publishing house, was printed at first abroad in the paper The Free Press, No. 2, in 1902 (England), afterwards in Russia. (See Full Collected Works of Tolstoi, published by Sytin, 1913 – popular edition, Volume XXII. It is known that the request of Tolstoi in this letter: To direct all the prosecutions for the spreading of his forbidden books in Russia to himself and not to his followers and friends, as well as a whole series of subsequent similar petitions to Governmental officials – was not granted.)
66The second act of Wagner’s opera, Siegfried. For the impression produced on Tolstoi, see What Is Art? chapter XIII – in the letter to his brother, Count S. N. Tolstoi, on April 20, 1896, Tolstoi under the fresh impression of this opera wrote the following: “Last night I was at the theatre and heard the celebrated new music of Wagner’s opera, Siegfried. I could not sit through a single act and I fled from the place like mad, and now I cannot talk calmly about it. It is stupid, unfit for children above seven years of age, a Punch and Judy show, pretentious, feigned, entirely false and without any music whatever. And several thousand sat and pretended to be fascinated.”
67Aphrikan Alexandrovich Spier (1837–1890), a remarkable Russian philosopher, who lived many years in Germany and who wrote his works in German: Thinking and Reality, Morality and Religious, etc. Tolstoi was then reading his principal work, Denken und Wirklichkeit (Thinking and Reality) – in a letter of 1896 to Countess S. A. Tolstoi, Tolstoi wrote: “I am reading a newly discovered philosopher, Spier, and am rejoicing… A very useful book, destroying many superstitions, especially the superstition of materialism.” (The Letters of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, Moscow, 1913, page 510.)
68The philosopher’s daughter, Elena Aphrikanovna Spier, who sent her father’s works to Tolstoi.
69Grigori Grigorevich Myasoyedov (1835–1912). A celebrated artist, the painter of the picture, “The Reading of the Ordinance, of February 19th” and others; one of the principal initiators and founders of the Society of Travelling Expositions.
70Dmitri Dmitrievich Sverbeev, the Governor of Courland, an acquaintance of the Tolstois’.
71The cement factory, Gill, within 7 versts of Yasnaya Polyana.
72To the Coronation in Moscow there went: Countess S. A. Tolstoi and Countess A. L. Tolstoi; while Countess T. L. Tolstoi went to Sweden for the coming marriage in Stockholm of Count L. L. Tolstoi and D. Ph. Westerlund.
73The branch post office, 7 versts from Yasnaya Polyana.
74Died in 1913.
75The well-known publisher of Novoe Vremia, M. O. Menshikov, a contributor at that time to the liberal magazine, Knizhki Nedieli, where among other things, he occupied himself with popularizing Tolstoi’s ideas. In the article “The Errors of Fear,” printed in that magazine in 1896 (Nos. IV to VI) Menshikov sharply condemned certain governmental repressions of the time. For this article the magazine received a warning. Towards the later journalistic activities of Menshikov, Tolstoi took a critical attitude.
76Fedior Alexeievich Strakhov, a friend, who shared the views of Tolstoi, author of philosophic articles published by Posrednik under the titles Beyond Political Interests, The Search For Truth. Posrednik also published a collection of articles of various thinkers compiled by him under the title Spirit and Matter (against materialism). Several of his other articles were issued abroad. For Tolstoi’s review of the books of F. A. Strakhov see in Journal, August 15, 1910.
77Nicholai Nicholaievich Strakhov (died in January of this year).
78With F. A. Strakhov.
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