MOSCOW,
1886.
... You have often complained to me that people “don’t understand you”!
Goethe and Newton did not complain of that.... Only Christ complained of
it, but He was speaking of His doctrine and not of Himself.... People
understand you perfectly well. And if you do not understand yourself, it is
not their fault.
I assure you as a brother and as a friend I understand you and feel for you
with all my heart. I know your good qualities as I know my five fingers; I
value and deeply respect them. If you like, to prove that I understand you,
I can enumerate those qualities. I think you are kind to the point of
softness, magnanimous, unselfish, ready to share your last farthing; you
have no envy nor hatred; you are simple-hearted, you pity men and beasts;
you are trustful, without spite or guile, and do not remember evil.... You
have a gift from above such as other people have not: you have talent. This
talent places you above millions of men, for on earth only one out of two
millions is an artist. Your talent sets you apart: if you were a toad or a
tarantula, even then, people would respect you, for to talent all things
are forgiven.
You have only one failing, and the falseness of your position, and
your unhappiness and your catarrh of the bowels are all due to it.
That is your utter lack of culture. Forgive me, please, but _veritas
magis amicitiae...._ You see, life has its conditions. In order to
feel comfortable among educated people, to be at home and happy with
them, one must be cultured to a certain extent. Talent has brought you
into such a circle, you belong to it, but ... you are drawn away from
it, and you vacillate between cultured people and the lodgers _vis-a-vis._
Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions:
1. They respect human personality, and therefore they are always kind,
gentle, polite, and ready to give in to others. They do not make a row
because of a hammer or a lost piece of india-rubber; if they live with
anyone they do not regard it as a favour and, going away, they do not say
“nobody can live with you.” They forgive noise and cold and dried-up meat
and witticisms and the presence of strangers in their homes.
2. They have sympathy not for beggars and cats alone. Their heart aches for
what the eye does not see.... They sit up at night in order to help P....,
to pay for brothers at the University, and to buy clothes for their mother.