In publishing the diary devoted to my friendship of nearly fifteen
years with Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi, I think it best to state first what
my aim was in making notes, and the method I pursued in doing so.
I put down chiefly Tolstoi’s words, and to some extent the events of
his private life, making no attempt to select what would be interesting
from some special point of view, but adopting no method and attempting
to supply no connection between one entry and another.
My diary, therefore, is in no sense “literature.” Its aim is to be a
document.
Unfortunately, I did not always make notes and was far from writing
down everything. After 1908 my records were fuller; in 1909-1910, the
last year of Tolstoi’s life, my reports were voluminous; but it was
only in 1910 that my records were as complete as they could possibly
be. This is the cause of a great disproportion between the parts. The
first volume of my diary contains the long period from January 1896 to
January 1st, 1910, the second volume records and materials for the year
1910 only, yet vol. ii. is considerably larger than vol. i.
My notes from 1896 to 1904 are now published for the first time. The
notes from 1904 to 1908 were published in _Russ. Prop._ vol. ii.,
and the notes from the end of 1908 to January 1st, 1910, appeared
in _Tolstoi: Pamyatniki Zhizni i Tvorchestva_. The parts of the
diary which have been previously published are here published in a
considerably enlarged form.