5) Why is it that children and simple people are by such an awful

height higher than the majority of people? Because their reason is

not perverted by the deception of faith or by temptations or by

sins. Nothing stands on their road to perfection, while adults have

sin and temptation and deception on theirs. The former have only to

walk forward, the latter must struggle.

6) They spoke about love and falling in love, and I made the

following conclusion for myself: a moral man fights falling in love

and exclusive love, an unmoral man--condones it.

7) Children are selfish without lies. All of life teaches the

aimlessness, the ruination of selfishness. And therefore old people

attain unselfishness without lies. These are two extreme limits.

8) I began to consider soup-kitchens and the purchase of flour, and

money, and my soul became so unclean and sad. The realm of money,

i.e., every kind of use of money, is a sin. I took money and undertook

to use it only so as to have a reason for going away from Moscow

and I acted _badly_.

9) I thought much about _The Appeal_, yesterday and to-day. It

became rather clear how a bad arrangement of life results in

religious deception. If something is unclear in one’s mind, if life

is disorderly and you don’t want anything.... (Somehow I haven’t

succeeded.)

10) In my sleep I thought to-day that the shortest expression of

the meaning of life is this: the world moves, perfects itself; the

task of man is to take part in this movement, to submit himself to

it and to help it.

My weakness still continues. I have written this out very badly.

_May 4. Grinevka. (Evening.)_

Yesterday there was a whole house full of guests: The Tsurikovs,

Mme. Ilinsky,[308] Stakhovich. I have done nothing during the day.

In the morning I wrote a letter to Chertkov[309] and to S[310] and

to still some one else. The day before yesterday I was in Sidorovo

and at Serezha’s.[311] In the morning I read Chertkov’s article.[312]

It is very good.

The 1st of May, Lindenberg[313] was here and a teacher[314] and they

went to Kamenka. On the 30th, I went to Gubarevka.

What hurts me, is that I seem to have lost entirely the capacity

for writing. To my shame I am indifferent. Latterly in my sleep, I

thought keenly about the contrast between the crushed people and

the crushers, but did not write it out.

To-day, yes and in the preceding days, it seemed to me that _Hadji

Murad_ became clear, but I could not write it. It is true they

interfered.

Thought:

1) Just as an athlete follows the growth of his muscles, so you ought

to follow the growth of love, or at least the decrease of evil and

lies--and life will be full and joyous.

2) Yesterday there was a discussion about the old question: what

is better--to take part in evil, to endeavour to diminish it (...)

or to keep away from it? The eternal objection is:--“There will be

anarchy”--yes, but now it is worse than anarchy: injustice.--“What,

then, if to begin everything from the beginning; the strong will

again offend the weak.” Yes, everything from the beginning again,

but with this difference, that while now we continue the cruelty and

injustice which have been established in heathen barbaric times, we

now live in the light of Christianity and the cruelty and injustice

will not be the same cruelty and injustice.... (It isn’t quite all

right, but it was.)

3) I look about me and the lines which I see I force into that

form which lives in my imagination. I see white on the horizon and

involuntarily I give this white the form of a church. Is it not in

this way that everything we see in this world takes on the form which

already lives in our imagination (consciousness), which we carried

over from our former life? (An idea.)

Exquisite weather. Friendly, hot Spring. I am at peace and am well.

_May 5. Grinevka. If I live._

_To-day May 9. Grinevka._

During these days we had visitors: Masha, Varia. I go every day

somewhere to open a soup-kitchen. I am not writing at all. I feel

weak. Yesterday there was a rain storm. I went to Bobrika. To-day I

went to Nicholskoe. I went to Gubarevka and returning through the

wood, thought.... I don’t feel like writing, later I shall write

out two thoughts, very important ones:

1) One, that I cannot put before me, that which tortured me before:

my destruction.

2) That the other life begins to attract me, only the process of

getting there is terrible. If only I could arrive safely, everything

there will be all right;

3) To-day I thought that the object of faith is only one--God. This

I must write out, explain.

To-day I am in a very weak state.

_May 10. Grinevka. If I live._

_To-day May 11. Grinevka._

Yesterday I wrote a little on _The Appeal_.[315] Then I went to

Mikhail’s Ford.

Saw Strakhov in my sleep,[316] who said to me that I should write

out clearly, for the plain man, what God is. “You ought to write

it, Leo Nicholaievich,” (Tolstoi.)

To-day my stomach ached a little. I didn’t dine and wrote much on

_The Appeal_. It seems to be taking form. I am feeling fresh in the

head, a thing I haven’t felt for a long time. Thanks to my gymnastic

exercises, I have become convinced for the first time, that I am old

and weak and I must stop physical exercise entirely. This is even

pleasant.

I forgot for a moment, my rule, not to expect anything from others,

but to do what one ought to do oneself before God,--and there arose

in me an evil feeling.... But I remembered, asked in good faith what

was necessary and I felt better.

1) There is one object of faith--God, He who sent me. He who sent

me, He who is everything of which I feel myself to be a part. This

faith is indispensable and satisfying. If you have this faith then

there is no room for any other. Everything else is trust and not

faith. You can only have faith in that which undoubtedly is, but

which we cannot embrace with our reason.

2) Yesterday I thought that the form of thinking--categories--are

not seven but four: cause, matter, space, time. But only one:

movement, encloses everything in itself. Movement is a change of

place, therefore there is space; change of place can be swifter

and slower, therefore there is time; and a preceding movement is a

cause, a following one, an effect; that which is displaced is matter.

Everything is movement. Man himself moves incessantly and therefore

everything explains itself to him by movement alone.

3) The most harmful effect of an evil act is that when a man

accomplishes it he frees himself from the demands of his conscience.

“We eat animals, therefore why not hunt?”--... and so you have no

need to stand on ceremony ... etc.

4) A strange thought came to me. Our whole life is in this, that we

consider ourselves a separate unit, an individual, a man. But besides

this being specialised, individualised, from all others, chemistry

discloses for us entirely different separate units, acids, nitrogen,

etc. They are separate and therefore they have life. (Nonsense.)

_May 12. Grinevka. If I live._

_To-day May 15. Morning. Grinevka._

Within these two days I went to Mtsensk,[317] Kukuevka, and yesterday

to Batyevo.[318] Wrote _Hadji Murad_ unwillingly. I have exercised

again.[319] It is stupid, almost an insanity. Wrote a poor letter

to Posha. I am pleased with every one here.

Just now I have reread this journal and it did not leave me very

dissatisfied. Oh, if I would only remember more my transitory,

subservient condition here!

Have made no entries. My health would be good if my back weren’t

aching. Began to write letters. Not succeeding. One must wait

peacefully and live before God.

_May 16. Grinevka. If I live._

_To-day May 19. Grinevka._

Sonya was here. She arrived the 17th. This morning she went away.

I have been trying to write these two days. Can’t do anything. An

exceptional weakness and pain in my spinal column.

_To-day May 20. Evening. Grinevka._

This morning I wrote rather much on _The Appeal_. In the evening I

wrote 13 letters. Went nowhere. My back is better. The main thing,

is that my brain is working and I am happy.

Received 500 roubles, and 1000 roubles are lying in Cherni.[320]

I am not going to write any more, although I have many notes.

_To-day May 27. Grinevka. In the morning._

During this time I wrote _The Appeal_ and finished the article on

the condition of the people.[321]

Just now I am writing to write out my notes--there is much that

has to be written out--that everything which is said in Paul

(Corinthians xiii) about love has to be said, and even more--about

the renunciation of oneself. It is impossible to lay up love within

oneself--but the renunciation of oneself is possible. It suffices

to renounce oneself and love will arise.

I thought this, because just now in the morning, I began to remember

all the difficulties which might arise from the distribution of

the contributions, about everything which had to be done for the

Dukhobors, for my own writing, and of which I had done nothing, and

about all my weaknesses, errors, about my joyless life with the

children, and such as I had not wanted it to be, and my lack of

consequence--and it sufficed only to negate myself, my own desires,

and immediately all wrong passed away, both of the past and the

future, and one thing remained, the need of service in the present.

How time vanishes remarkably in the consciousness of one’s mission.

_To-day, I think, June 12. Yasnaya Polyana._

I went with Sonya (my daughter-in-law)[322] to the Tsurikovs,

Aphremovs, and the Levitskys.[323] I have a very pleasant impression

and fell in love with many; but fell ill and did not do my work and

made a lot of fuss both for Levitsky and the household.[324]...

It is four days since I arrived in Yasnaya and I am recovering

nicely. Wrote many letters.

I received almost 4,000 roubles, which I cannot use this year.[325]

Masha is here with her husband and Iliusha. The Westerlunds were

here.[326]...

To-day, entirely unexpectedly, I began to finish _Sergius_.[327] No

news from England.[328]

I have made many notes.

1) I cannot remember now what and how I thought it: this is the

note: “You are often too strict with people, and he, poor man, is

good for nothing.”

2) Although I noted it before, I can’t help but repeat: ...

3) ...

4) The life of the world is one, i.e., in the sense that it is

impossible to apply the conception of number to it. Plurality

comes only from the partitions of consciousness. For a universal

consciousness there is no number, no plurality.

5) Non-resistance to evil is important not therefore only, because a

man has to act so for himself, for attaining the perfection of love,

but also because only non-resistance alone stops evil, localises it

in itself, neutralises it, does not permit it to go farther, as it

inevitably does, like the transmission of movement to elastic balls,

if there be no force which would absorb it. Active Christianity is

not in doing, creating Christianity, but in absorbing evil.

I feel very much like writing out the story, _The Coupon_.[329]

6) Death is the crossing-over from one consciousness to another, from

one image of the world to another. It is as if you go over from one

scene with its scenery to another. At the moment of crossing over,

it is evident that that what we consider real, is only an image,

because we are going over from one image into another. At the moment

of this crossing-over, there becomes evident, or at least one feels,

the most actual reality. Because of this, the moment of death is

important and dear.

7) For a universal consciousness, for God, matter does not exist.

Matter is only for beings, separated one from another. The limits

of separateness is that which we call matter, in all its infinite

forms.

8) It is impossible to remember sufficiently that the life of all

beings is continuous movement. Almost all our misery comes from the

fact that we do not know this or forget this. And imagining that

we do not go forward, but that we stand still, we grasp the beings

moving alongside of us--some going faster, some going slower than

we--we grasp them and hold on as long as the force of the movement

does not tear us away. And we suffer.

9) We are all rolling down a slope, going down lower and lower to

the plain. Every attempt to hold to one’s place, only makes the fall

bigger, the more you hold on.

10) We are sent to cross this sloping path, carrying across it that

light which is entrusted to us. And all that we can do--is to help

each other on the road to carry this light; but we hold back, pushing

each other down, extinguishing our light and that of the others.

(It isn’t good, not what I wanted to say.)

11) I know, that when people yawn in front of me, I can become

infected, and therefore I say to myself: I don’t want to yawn and

I won’t. I have learned to do this as to yawning, but I am only

beginning to learn this as to anger.

12) The sight depresses me strangely ... of those owning the land

and compelling the people to work. How my conscience is struck. And

this is not something reasoned, but a very strong feeling. Was I

wrong in not giving my land to the peasants? I don’t know.

13) Lieskov made use of my theme and badly.[330] I had an exquisite

thought--three problems: What was the most important time? what man?

and what act? The time is the immediate, this minute; the man--he

with whom you have immediate business; the act, to save your soul,

i.e., to do the act of love.[331]

14) It is impossible to save humanity from that deception in which

it is caught.... Only a religious feeling can give the counterstroke

and conquer.

_June 13. Y. P. If I live._

_June 14. Y. P. Evening._

Both days I wrote _Father Sergius_. It is coming out well. Wrote

letters. To-day there was a christening.[332]

I still cannot be fully good.... It is difficult, but I do not

despair.

_To-day June 22. Y. P._

On the 16th I fell very ill.[333] I never had felt so weak and so near

death. I am ashamed to have made use of the care which they gave me.

I could do nothing. I only read and made some notes. To-day I am a

great deal better. Ukhtomsky[334] was pleased with my article,[335]

but nevertheless he refused to print it. I telegraphed to Menshikov

that he should try the _Viestnik Evropa_ and the _Russki Trud_.[336]

I am afraid I am going to become tiresome.

The youth have been driven away. For they have forbidden that the

flour that was bought be sold.[337]

... Received a letter from Chertkov, a good one. The Dieterichs

arrived.[338] Dear Dunaev was here. They talked about the great riot

of the factory workers. I shall finish later.

_To-day June 28. Y. P. Evening._

I am only now recovered, and am experiencing the joy of _convalescence_.

I feel nature very vividly, keenly, and have a great clarity of

thought.

I wrote a little on _The Appeal_. To-day I wrote _Father Sergius_

and both are good. Wrote many letters yesterday. All that I received

yesterday were unpleasant: from N, but principally from Gali, with

the news that they have all quarrelled.[339] Posha is going to

Switzerland and Boulanger to Bulgaria.

Tania went to Masha’s....

There is only one thing; one real thing that has been given us: to

live lovingly with one’s brothers, with every one. One must renounce

oneself. I wrote that to my friends and I am going to be strict with

myself.

Here is what I have written down....

I have just read up to this point, where everything that is difficult

can be made to vanish when you throw off the illusion of a personal

life, when you recognise your mission in the service to God, and

that it would be good to experience this in physical suffering,

whether it will stand physical suffering. And here was a chance to

experience it and I forgot and did not experience it. It is too bad.

But the next time.

Have written down:

1) Paul Adam[340] gives the peasants a cruel characteristic,

especially the working men: they are vulgar, selfish, slaves,

fanatics--perhaps all this is just, but the one thing, that they

can live without us and we cannot live without them, wipes out

everything. And therefore it is not for us to judge. (Something is

wrong here.)

2) It is especially disagreeable for me when people who have lived

little and thought little, do not believe me, and not understanding

me, argue with me about moral problems. It would be the same for which

a veterinary surgeon would be hurt, if people who were not familiar

with his art were to argue with him. The difference is only in this,

that the art of the veterinary, the cook, the samovar-maker or any

kind of art or science, is recognised as an art or a science where

only those people are competent who have studied that realm; in the

matter of morality every one considers himself competent, because

every one has to justify his life. But life is justified only by

theories of morality. And every one makes them for himself.

3) I have often thought about falling in love, about the good, ideal

falling in love, which is exclusive of every sensuality, and I cannot

find either place or meaning for it. But its place and meaning is

very clear and definite: it is to lighten the struggle between sex

desire and chastity. Falling in love ought to be for a young man who

cannot keep to full chastity before marriage, and to release the

young men in the most critical years, from 16 to 20 or more, from

the torturing struggle. Here is the place for falling in love. But

when it breaks out in the life of people after marriage, it is out

of place and disgusting.

4) I am often asked for advice as to the problem of owning land. It

is my old custom to answer: that it is unsuitable for me to answer

such problems, just as it would be unsuitable for me to answer the

problem how to make use of the ownership or the labour or the rent

of a bonded serf.

5) People who stand on a lower moral plane or religious world point

of view cannot understand people standing on a higher plane. But

that there should be a possibility of union between them, there has

been given to people standing on a lower plane the instinct for the

good and a respect for this good. If there is not this instinct and

respect, then it is very bad. But in our society, among so-called

educated people, this is getting to be less and less.

_To-day June 30. Y. P._

I am still ill, and very weak. But I think I am improving, and my

spiritual state is good. The day before yesterday I received a letter

about the quarrel in England.[341] I wrote to them. It is very sad

and very instructive. Yesterday I received a letter from Khilkov

with a letter from Miss Pickard about the Dukhobors.[342] I wrote

letters to Crosby, and Willard[343] and Khilkov. The affair of the

Dukhobors is important and big and evidently something will come

out of it which is entirely different from what we are preparing,

but it is God’s affair. To-day Mme. Annenkov arrived. Menshikov

telegraphed that Gaideburov[344] will print with omissions. During

these days I wrote _Sergius_--it isn’t good.

I am going to continue to write out the former:

6) ...

7) A man is a being separated from all others, who feels his limits.

Among the number of general limits by which he separates himself

from other beings, are his limits which are in common with that

being incomprehensible to him--the earth. Death is the destruction

of all the various common limits with other beings and always of the

common limit of the being of the earth--a fusion with earth. Every

sickness, wound, old age, is a destruction of these limits.

8) The work of life is to love. It is impossible to love expressly

those people unworthy of love; but it is possible not to love--to

behave well, in a good way, toward such people in every given moment.

9) I remembered keenly what a matter of enormous importance was

complete truthfulness in every detail, in everything, the avoidance

of all outer false forms. And I decided to keep to this. _It is

never too late to mend._[345]

10) The minister said to the murderer: “Oh brother, don’t worry.

God has pardoned even greater sinners. But who are you? Don’t lose

heart. Pray.” The murderer burst into tears.

11) How great and stable seemed the happiness of the American people,

and how unstable it proved to be, like all happiness not founded

on life, according to the law of Christ. The Spanish-American War,

Jingoism.

12) I have often prayed (almost without believing, to try out) that

God arrange my life as I wish. To-day I simply prayed my customary

morning prayer and rather attentively. And after this prayer, I

recalled my wish and wanted to add a prayer about the fulfilment

of this wish, and tried to address God about it. And immediately I

realised my mistake--that it would be very much better if everything

was not according to my will, but according to His. And without the

least effort and with joy I said: “Yes, let there not be my will,

but Thine.”

13) A spiritual life means that you should see the connection between

cause and effect in the spiritual world and that you be guided in

life by this connection. Materialists do not see this connection

and therefore do not take it as a guide for their acts, but they

take as a guide for their acts the physical, causal connection, the

one which is so complicated that we never fully know it, because

every effect is an effect of an effect; but the fundamental cause

of everything--is always spiritual. (Not clearly expressed, but

important).

14) Epictetus says this very thing when he reproaches people for

being very attentive to the phenomenon of the outer world--to that

which is not in our power and being inattentive to the phenomenon

of the inner, to that which is in our power.

15) To many it seems that if you exclude personality from life and a

love for it, then nothing will remain. It seems to them that without

personality there is no life. But this only appears so to people who

have not experienced self-renunciation. Throw off personality from

life, renounce it, and then there will remain that which makes the

essence of life--love.

16) (For _The Appeal_) ...

_To-morrow, July 1st. If I live._

_July 6. Y. P._

Am entirely well. Yesterday I took leave of Dunaev and Mme. Annenkov,

who were here. I live very badly. I cannot reconcile myself to the

will of God.

To-day I thought:

The life of Christ is very important as an instance of that

impossibility of man to see the fruits of his labours. And the less

so, the more important the work. Moses could enter into the promised

land with his people, but Christ could in no way see the fruit of

his teaching even if he had lived up to now. This is what one has

to learn. But we want to do the work of God and to receive human

reward.

_July 17. Y. P. ’98. Morning._

There was nothing very special during these 11 days. I have decided

to give my novels away, _Resurrection_ and _Father Sergius_, to be

printed for the Dukhobors.[346]

S. went to Kiev.

An inner struggle. I believe little in God. I do not rejoice at the

examination, but am burdened by it, admitting in advance that I

won’t pass. All last night I didn’t sleep. I rose early and prayed

much.

To-day the Dieterichs and the Gorbunovs arrived. It was pleasant

with them. Took hold of _Resurrection_, and in the beginning it went

well, but from the moment when I became alarmed, these two days, I

have been unable to do anything. I took a very nice walk.

I wrote a letter to Järnefelt[347] and prepared a postscript. This

is the only important thing. But I haven’t the strength to withstand

the customary temptation.[348] Come and dwell within us. Awake the

resurrection in me!

I have made many notes. I will hardly have time to write them out now.

1) Brooding leads to dreams, dreams to passions, passion to devils.

(From _Love for the Good_.)[349]

2) The æsthetic pleasure which you receive from Nature is attainable

to all. Every one is affected by it differently, but it affects

every one. Art should have the same effect.

3) How difficult it is to really live for God alone. You think you

are living for God, but as soon as life jolts you, as soon as that

support in life to which you are holding on, fails you, then you

feel that there is no holding power in God and you fall.

4) For _Father Sergius_: Alone he is good, with people he falls.

5) What an obvious error: to live for worldly ends. Whenever the

purpose is not narrowly egotistic then this purpose is not quickly

attained in life. Moses did not enter the promised land and Christ

despaired of His labour: “Why hast Thou abandoned me?”...

6) There is no peace, either for him who lives for worldly ends

among people, or for him who lives for spiritual ends alone. There

is peace only then when a man lives for the service of God among

people.

_To-day, July 20. Y. P._

A letter from S and from Masha. I still do not sleep, but things

are settling themselves in my soul, and as always, suffering is

of benefit. Yesterday I went to Ovsiannikovo, spoke with Ivan

Ivanovich.[350] Yesterday I worked well on _Resurrection_.

It is morning now. I am not continuing to write out from the

notebooks, but I am going to write out what I--not being asleep--have

just now been thinking; it is an old but easily forgotten thing,

and an important one which should be also told to N with whom they

talked last night. Namely:

1) Life for oneself is a torture, because you want to live for an

illusion, for that which does not exist, and it not only cannot be

happy, but it cannot be at all. It is the same as dressing and

feeding a shadow. Life exists only outside of oneself, in the service

of others, and not in the service of one’s near ones, beloved

ones--that is again for oneself--but in the service of those whom

we do not love, and better still, in the service of enemies. Help,

Father. The terrible error is that one confuses sex-love, love for

children, for friends, with love of people through God, of people

to whom you are indifferent, and still more of enemies, that is, of

erring people.

_Aug. 3. Pirogovo._

Again everything is in the old way, again my life is horrid. I have

lived through very much; I haven’t passed the examination. But I do

not despair and I want a re-examination. I passed the examination

exceptionally badly, because I had the intention of going over to

another institution. It is just these thoughts one must throw away,

then one will learn better.

During this time Sonya returned and dear Tania Kuzminsky was here.

The work on _Resurrection_ goes very badly, although it seems to me

I have thought it out much better. The 3rd day in Pirogovo. Uncle

Serezha[351] is not as good as he was before: he is not in the mood.

Maria Nicholaievna.[352] For two days nothing has come into my head.

During this time there was alarming news about the condition

of the Dukhobors[353] and that Mme. M. N. Rostovtzev was put in

prison.[354] For a long time there has been no letter from Chertkov.

Perhaps they intercept them.[355]

Am going to continue to write out that which I had not written out:

1) ...

2) There are two methods of human activity--and according to which

one of these two kinds of activity people mainly follow, are there

two kinds of people: one use their reason to learn what is good and

what is bad and they act according to this knowledge; the other act

as they want to and then they use their reason to prove that that

which they did was good and that which they didn’t do was bad.

3) It is absolutely clear that it is much more profitable to do

everything in common, but the reasoning about this is insufficient.

If the reasoning were sufficient then it would have happened long

ago. The fact that it is seen among Capitalists is unable to

convince people to live in common. Besides the reasoning that this

is profitable, it is necessary that the heart be ready to live like

that (that the world point of view should be such that it would

harmonise with the indications of the reason), but this is not so

and will not be so until the desires of the heart are changed, i.e.,

the world point of view of people.

4) Even if that which Marx predicted should happen, then the only

thing that will happen, is that despotism will be passed on. Now

the capitalists rule, but then the directors of the working people

will rule.

5) The mistake of the Marxists (and not only they, but the whole

materialistic school) lies in the fact that they do not see that the

life of humanity is moved by the growth of consciousness, by the

movement of religion, by an understanding of life becoming more and

more clear, general, meeting all problems and not by an economic

cause.

6) The most unthought thing, the error, of the theory of Marx is in

the supposition that capital will pass from the hands of private

people into the hands of the government, and from the government,

representing the people, into the hands of the workers....

7) There is nothing that softens the heart so much as the

consciousness of one’s guilt, and nothing hardens it so much as

the consciousness of one’s right.

8) Working people are so ... that it seems to them they have no

outlet. Salvation lies in truth, in preaching and professing it.

9) They prove the law of the conservation of energy; but energy is

nothing else than an abstract notion, just the same as matter. But

an abstract notion is always equal to itself. In fact, this is

nothing else than as if we were to begin to prove that the law of

gravitation, notwithstanding seeming departures, exists unchangingly

in everything. (Unclear and perhaps untrue.)

10) The belief in miracles has for its basis the consciousness that

our world just as it is, is the product of our senses. But the error

lies only in supposing that the miraculous, that is, that something

which is against the laws of reason, when applied to our senses,

can happen for us with our tool of consciousness, i.e., with our

senses. That which is against our laws of reason, when applied to our

senses, can happen for other beings, for beings with other senses,

just as our tool of consciousness, our sense, is only one particular

instance from the innumerable quantity of other possibilities.

11) It is a great error to think that the reason of man is perfect

and can disclose everything to him. The limitation of reason is

best seen and most obvious from the fact that a man cannot solve

(he clearly sees that he cannot) the problems of infinity: for each

time there is still more time, for each space there is still more

space, for each number there is still a number, so that all time

and space is unknowable.

12) The reason of man is just as weak and insignificant in comparison

(and in an infinite number of times more so) with that which is, as

is the reason (the means of perception) of a beetle and an amæba in

comparison with the reason of man. The reason of man in comparison,

not only with the highest reason, but with the reason which is higher

than his--is just the same as the understanding of a complicated

problem of higher mathematics or even of algebra for a man not knowing

mathematics, to whom it seems insoluble, as are the problems of the

infinity of space and time to us. While the problem is simple and

clear for one knowing mathematics. The difference is only in this,

that one can learn mathematics, but no study will help to solve the

problem of space and time. This is the limit of the possibility of

our knowledge under our reason.

13) I pray God that He release me from my suffering which tortures

_me_. But this suffering is sent to me by God in order to release

me from evil. The master whips his cattle with the whip in order to

drive them from the burning yard and save them, and the cattle pray

that he do not whip them.

14) There are common, sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional,

misunderstandings of my opinions which I confess irritate me:

a) I say that God ... is not God and that God is that which alone

is--the unattainable good, the beginning of everything: against me

they say, that I deny God;

b) I say that one ought not to resist violence by violence: against

me they say, that I say it is not necessary to fight evil;

c) I say that one ought to strive towards chastity and that on this

road the highest grade will be virginity, and second a clean marriage,

the third not a clean, that is, not a monogamous marriage: against

me they say, that I deny marriage and I preach the destruction of

the human race.

d) I say that art is an infectious activity and that the more

infectious art is, the better it is. But that this activity be good

or bad, does not depend on how much it satisfies the demands of art,

i.e., its infectiousness, but on how much it satisfies the demands

of the religious consciousness, i.e., morality, conscience; against

me they say that I preach a _tendence_ art, etc.

15) Woman--and the legends say it also--is the tool of the devil.

She is generally stupid, but the devil lends her his brain when she

works for him. Here you see, she has done miracles of thinking,

far-sightedness, constancy, in order to do something nasty; but as

soon as something not nasty is needed, she cannot understand the

simplest thing; she cannot see farther than the present moment and

there is no self-control and no patience (except child-birth and

the care of children).

16) All this concerns women, un-Christians, unchaste women, as are

all the women of our Christian world. Oh, how I would like to show

to women all the significance of a chaste woman. A chaste woman (not

in vain is the legend of Mary) will save the world.

17) People are occupied with three things: 1) to feed themselves,

i.e., to continue their existence, 2) to multiply--to continue the

existence of the specie, and 3) to fulfil that for which they had

been sent in the world: to establish the kingdom of God. For this

there is one means--to perfect oneself. Almost all people are occupied

with the first two matters, forgetting the last, which at bottom is

the only real work.

18) The decline of the moral consciousness of humanity lies in the

greatest part of the people being placed in such a situation that

all interest in life for them is only to feed and to multiply. It

is just the same as if the master kept his cattle, caring only that

they be fed, or better, that they do not die from hunger and that

they multiply, and never received any income from them: no wool, or

milk, or work from them--from these cattle. The Master who sent us in

this world requires from us, besides existence and its continuation,

also the labour He needs.

19) For _Resurrection_. It was impossible to think and remember

one’s sin and be self-satisfied. But he had to be self-satisfied in

order to live, and therefore he did not think and forgot.

20) It is impossible to demand from woman that she valuate the feeling

of her exclusive love, on the basis of moral feeling. She cannot

do it, because she hasn’t got a real moral feeling, i.e., one that

stands higher than everything.

To-day I plan to go home.

_Aug. 4. Y. P. If I live._

Why does the 4th of August come to my mind as if it were important?

Nothing important has happened.

_To-day, August 24. Y. P._

During this time I received no letters from Chertkov and am very

perplexed.[356] I think that during this time the Dukhobors were

here. Letters from Khilkov, from Ivan Michailovich. I answered them

all. To-day Sullerzhitsky arrived.[357] I am working all the time

on _Resurrection_ and am pleased, even very much so. I am afraid of

shocks.

... And I feel well. A full house of people: Mashenka,[358]

Stakhovich, Vera Kuzminsky,[359] Vera Tolstoi.[360]

I am copying:

1) People were sent into the world to do the work of God, but they

quarrelled, fought and established things in such a way that for

some, there is no time to do the work, because they have to feed

themselves, and for others there is no time, because they have to

guard that which they took away. What a waste of strength! It is

just as if workers had been sent to work and given food; some have

taken the food away and they have to guard it and the others have

to get food, and the work stands still.

2) People live in the world not fulfilling their mission--it is the

same way as if factory workers were only busied with how to lodge

themselves, feed themselves and amuse themselves.

3) One of the most important tasks of humanity consists in the

bringing up of a chaste woman.

4) I often think that the world is such as it is, only because I

am so separated from all the rest. As soon as my separateness from

_Everything_ will end, then the limits will be torn away and other

limits will be established--and then the world will become altogether

different for me.

5) You wish to serve humanity? Very well. That which you wish to

do, another will do. Are you satisfied? No, dissatisfied, because

the important thing for me is not what will be done, but what _I_

will do; that I do my work. This is the best proof that the matter

is not in the doing, but in the advancement towards the good.

Is it possible that I am advancing? Help, Lord.

6) How difficult it is to please people: some need one thing, others

another. They need both my past and my future. God is one, and His

Will in respect to me is one, and He wants only my present, what I

am doing this minute is what He wants. And what was, has been, and

what will be, isn’t my business.

7) Egoism, the whole egoistic life, is legitimate only as long as

reason has not awakened. As soon as it has awakened, then egoism is

lawful, only to that degree in which one has to sustain oneself as a

tool necessary for the service of people. The purpose of reason--is

the service to people. All the horror lies in its being used for

service to oneself.

8) Man gives himself to the illusion of egoism, lives for himself--and

he suffers. It suffices that he begin to live for others, and the

suffering becomes lighter and there is obtained the highest good in

the world: love of people.

9) As one disaccustoms oneself from smoking or other habits, so

one can and must disaccustom oneself from egoism. When you wish to

enlarge your pleasure, when you wish to exhibit _yourself_, when

you call forth love in others, stop. If you have nothing to do for

others, or you have no desire to do anything, then do nothing--only

don’t do anything for yourself.

10) The Bavarian told about their life. He boasts about the high

degree of freedom, but at the same time they have compulsory religious

teaching, a crude Catholic one. That is the most horrible despotism.

Worse than ours.

_Aug. 25. Y. P. If I live._

_Nov. 2. Y. P._

It is horrible to see for what a long time I have made no entries:

more than two months. And not only has there been nothing bad, but

rather everything was good. The Jubilee was not as repulsive and

as depressing as I expected.[361] The sale of the novel and the

receipt of the 12,000 roubles which I gave to the Dukhobors was well

arranged.[362] I was displeased with Chertkov[363] and I saw that

I was at fault. A Dukhobor arrived from the province of Yakutsk. I

liked him very much[364] ...

Masha is pitiable in her weakness, but she is just as near in

spirit....

But glory to God and thanks be to Him that he has awakened it in me

and has kept it burning so that it is natural for me either to love

and rejoice, or to love and to pity. And what happiness!

Archer was here yesterday, arriving from Chertkov--I liked him.[365]

There is much to do, but I am all absorbed in _Resurrection_, being

sparing with the water and using it only for _Resurrection_. It

seems to me it won’t be bad. People praise it, but I don’t believe.

Everything that I noted--it was all very important--I will write

out later, but now I want to write that which I just now, walking

on the path, in the evening, not only thought but felt clearly:

1) Under my feet there is the frozen, hard earth; around, enormous

trees; overhead a cloudy sky; I fed my body, I feel pain in the

head; I am occupied with thoughts on _Resurrection_; and yet I

know, I feel in all my being, that both the firm and frozen earth

and the trees and the sky and my body and my thoughts--all this is

only a product of my five senses, my image, the world, made by me

because such is my partition from the world. And that it will be

sufficient for me to die--and all this will not disappear but will

become transformed, as they make transformations in the theatres:

from bushes and stones, they make castles, towers, etc. Death is

nothing else than such a transformation, dependent from another

partition from the world, another personality: Here I consider as

myself, my body with my senses, and then something else will detach

itself to be myself. And then the whole world will become something

else. But the world is such and not something else, only because I

consider myself as this and not as something else. But there can

be an innumerable quantity of divisions of the world. (This is not

entirely clear for others, but for me--very.)[366]

_Nov. 3. If I live._

_Nov. 14. Y. P._

Again I have not noticed how 11 days have passed. Have been very

intensely occupied with _Resurrection_ and am making good progress.

Am absolutely near the end. Serezha and Suller were here and both

went away to the Caucasus with my letter to Golitsin.[367] S. arrived

yesterday. Very well. It is a long time since I have felt so well

and keen, intellectually and physically.

I cannot make out what I have written out and what I haven’t.[368]

1) How difficult it is to please people! In order to please them it

is necessary that the past and the future meet their demands. But

in order to please God, one has only to satisfy His demands in the

present.

2) To live for others seems difficult--just as to work seems

difficult. But just as in work, in the care for others there may be

the best reward: love of others may and may not be; while in labour

there is an inner reward, you work to the end, get tired, and you

feel good.

3) The poetry of the past occupied itself only with the strong of

the world: with the Czars, etc., because the strong of the world

appeared as the highest and the most complete representatives of

the people. But if you take the plain people, then it is necessary

that they express general phenomena ... (Unclear.)

4) If you do not permit yourself to live for yourself, then

involuntarily, from boredom, you begin to live for others.

5) Woman, just like man, is endowed with feeling and brain, but

the difference is in this, that men mostly consider themselves and

their feelings bound by the commands of reason, while women consider

their feelings binding for themselves and for their reason. The same

thing, but only in different places.

6) You get angry at the philosopher who reasons, who considers that

the main basis of the life of man is his material nature; but this

man does not know the spiritual, but knows only material effect and

therefore he cannot think otherwise.

7) You think that you are alone and you suffer from loneliness; yet

you are not only in harmony, but you are one with every one; only

artificial and removable barriers separate you. Remove them--and you

are one with every one. The removing of these barriers according to

your strength is the business of life.

8) If a man considers his animal being as himself, then he will

represent God also as a material being, a ruler who rules materially

over material things. But God is not such, God is spirit and does

not rule over anything, but lives in everything.

9) ... If people could have been so deceived, then there is no

deception into which they would not fall.

10) I have noted down that it is depressing because there is no

life, but only an egoistic existence. I cannot remember what else

I could have meant by this.

11) God manifests himself in our consciousness. When there is

no consciousness--there is no God. Only consciousness gives the

possibility for the good, for continence, service, self-sacrifice.

Everything depends to what consciousness is directed. Consciousness

directed to the animal “self” kills, paralyzes life. Consciousness

directed to the spiritual “self” rouses, lifts, frees life.

Consciousness directed to the animal “self” strengthens, ignites

passion, creates fear, struggle, the horror of death. Consciousness

directed towards the spiritual “self” frees love. _This is very

important and if I live, I will write it out._

12) Death is a change of consciousness, a change of that which I

can recognise as myself. And therefore fear of death is a horrible

superstition. Death is a joyous event standing at the end of each

life. Suffering is sent to people to hold them back from death.

Otherwise every one understanding life and death, would struggle

towards death. But now it is impossible to go towards death unless

through suffering.

13) The greatest act in life is the consciousness of one’s _self_,

and its consequences are benevolent or most terrible, according to

whether you direct your consciousness towards the spirit or towards

the body.

14) In order to get rid of moral suffering (and even physical) there

are two means: to destroy the cause of suffering or the feeling in

one’s self which produces suffering. The first is not in man’s power,

the second is. (I am repeating Epictetus).

15) The moral progress of humanity advances only because there are

old people. The old people become kinder, wiser, and give over that

which they have lived through to the following generations. If this

were not so, humanity had not advanced; and what a simple method!

16) If man looks on life materially, then old people do not become

better, but worse, and there is no progress.

17) Technical progress is greeted by every one, is pushed on by

every one; the moral, the religious progress, is held back by the

priests. From this come the main calamities in life.

_November 15. Y. P. If I live._

It seemed to me that I made no entries for about three days and now

it is ten days. _To-day, Nov. 25. Y. P._

... I promised to arrive December 6th.[369]... I feel also like

going to Pirogovo. We are alone: Tania, Masha, Kolia. Only Liza

Obolensky.[370] I am still diligently occupying myself with

_Resurrection_.

Last night I thought out an article on why the people are corrupted.

They have no faith of any kind. They christen naïve infants and then

they consider every reasoning about faith (perversion) and every

lapse, as a capital crime. Only the sectarians have faith. Perhaps

I am going to bring that into the _Appeal_. What a pity. I thought

it out well at night.

_Resurrection_ is growing. It can hardly be compressed into 100

chapters.[371]

I have noted down the following and I think it is very important

(which might be good for the Declaration of Faith):

1) We are very much accustomed to the reasoning as to how the life

of other people, people in general, should be arranged. And such

kind of reasoning does not seem strange to us. And yet such kind

of reasoning could in no ways exist among religious and therefore

free people; such reasoning is the consequence of despotism, ...

In this way reason ... They say: “If I had the power I would do so

and so with the others.” That is a dangerous error, not only because

it tortures, deforms people who have to undergo violence ... but it

weakens in all people the consciousness of the necessity of improving

themselves, which is the only effective means of influencing other

people.

2) To-day I thought about this from another angle. I recalled

the words of the Gospel: “And the pupil is not higher than the

teacher; if he learns then he will be like the pupil.” We, the rich

master-classes, teach the people. What would happen if we succeeded

in teaching them so that they become as we are?

3) They talk, they write, they preach about the knowing of God. What

a horrible blasphemy, and horrible admission of the non-understanding

of what God is and what we are. We, a particle of the infinite whole,

wish to understand not only this whole, but its causes, the origin

of the whole. What absurdity and what a recognition of godlessness,

or a recognition of God of that which is not God. We can only know

that He is, Τὸ ὄν, He exists, and we can only conclude by ourselves,

what He is not.

4) Love is God. Love is only the recognition that God is not flesh,

not passion, not egoism, not malice. (Doubtful.)

5) Violence rules our world, i.e., malice, and therefore there is

always found in society a majority of dependent, unstable members:

women, children, stupid ones--brought up on malice, and who side

with malice. But the world ought to be ruled by reason, by goodness;

then all this majority would be brought up on goodness and would

side with it. In order that this should take place it is necessary

that reason and goodness manifest themselves, and undismayed, assert

their existence; that is very important.

6) The complexity of knowledge is a sign of its falseness. That

which is true is simple.

7) How bad it is that people seeking perfection are pained at

calumny, at a deserved bad name (or better still, at an undeserved).

Calumny, a bad name, gives an opportunity, drives toward an activity,

the value of which is only in our conscience. This is so rare, so

difficult, and so useful. Involuntary simpleness is the best school

for goodness.[372]

8) I have noted down: “_Justice is insufficient. It is ...[373]

necessary to oppose._” I cannot remember what this means.

9) Physical labour is important, because it prevents the mind from

working idly and aimlessly.

10) Perhaps it is more important to know what one ought not to think

about, than to know what one ought to think about.

11) Women are weak and they not only do not want to know their own

weakness, but want to boast of their strength. What can be more

disgusting?

12) A good man if he does not acknowledge his mistakes and tries to

justify himself can become a monster.

13) ...

Now _Nov. 26_. _Morning. Y. P._

Did not sleep and thought:

1) Evil is the material for love. Without evil there is none and

can be no manifestation of love. God is love, i.e., God manifests

Himself to us in victory over evil, i.e., in love. The question of

the origin of evil is just as absurd as the question of the origin

of the world. It is not “whence comes evil?” that one must know,

but “how to conquer it? How to apply love?”

1899

_Jan. 2. Yasnaya Polyana._

The last time I wrote it was November 25, which means a month and

a week. I made entries in Yasnaya Polyana, then I was in Moscow,

where I did not make one entry. At the end of November I went to

Pirogovo. I returned on the first and since that time have not been

quite well--the small of my back ached and still aches, and lately

I have had something like bilious fever. It is the second day that

I am better.

All this time I have been occupied exclusively with _Resurrection_.[374]

I have had some communications about the Dukhobors,[375] an innumerable

pile of letters. Kolechka Gay is with me, with whom it is a rest to

be.... I am calm in the fashion of an old man. And that is all.

There is quite a lot to write out. I am going to write it out on the

pages I skipped. Lately I feel as if my interest in _Resurrection_

has weakened, and I joyously feel other, more important, interests,

in the understanding of life and death. Much seems clear.

Made an entry, the 2nd of January. To-day, _Feb. 21_. _Moscow._

More than six weeks that I have made no entries. Am all the time

in Moscow. At first _Resurrection_ went well, then I cooled off

entirely.[376] I wrote a letter to the non-commissioned officer[377]

and to the Swedish papers.[378] For about three days I have again

taken up _Resurrection_. Am advancing.

Students’ strike. They are trying to drag me in all the time.[379]

I am counselling them to hold themselves passively, but I do not

feel like writing letters to them.

... As to me--my back is better. There is living with us, an

interesting and live Frenchman, Sinet,--the first religious

Frenchman.[380] There is very much that I ought to write out. Have

been in a very bad mood; now all right.

_Feb. 22. Moscow._

_June 26. Yasnaya Polyana._

Four months that I have made no entries. I will not say I have lived

badly all this time. I have worked and am working diligently on

_Resurrection_. There is much that is good, there is that, in the

name of which I write. During these days I have been gravely ill;

now well....

Difficult relations because of the printing and translating of

_Resurrection_,[381] but most of the time am calm.

Neglected correspondence. They continue sending money for the

famine-stricken, but I can do nothing else but send it to them

through the post.[382] Kolichka is with me helping me in the work.

...

I continue to write out from my note-book:

14) Nearing the place of destination, one thinks more and more often

of that place to which one is nearing. Thus also while nearing death,

the change of destination.

15) Only always to remember that there is no other meaning in life,

no other way of finding the joy of life, but through fulfilling His

will. And how peacefully and joyously one could live!

16) In time of illness, to fulfil His will by preparing oneself for

the going over into another form.

17) It seems to us that the real labour is the labour on something

external: to make, to collect something; property, houses, cattle,

fruit; but to labour on one’s own soul--that is just phantasy. And

yet every other labour except on one’s own soul, the enlarging of

the habits of good, every other labour is a _bagatelle_.

18) They do not obey God, but adore Him. It is better not to adore,

but to obey.

19) No matter what the work you are doing, be always ready to drop

it. And plan it, so as to be able to leave it.

20) The machine ... is a terrible machine. If we would have clearly

understood its danger, we would never have permitted it to be formed.

21) It seems strange and immoral that a writer, an artist, seeing

the suffering of people, sympathises less than he observes, in order

to reproduce this suffering. But that is not immoral. The suffering

of one personality is an insignificant thing in comparison with that

spiritual effect, if it is a good one, which a work of art will

produce.

22) Humanity, it is an enormous animal who seeks and cannot find what

it needs. Very slowly, sensations call forth emotions, and emotions

are transmitted to the brain and the brain calls forth acts. The

activity of the liberals, Socialists, revolutionaries, are attempts

to galvanise, to compel the animal to act by arousing its motor

nerves and muscles. But there is one organ which does everything when

it is not impaired; in the animal it is the brain, in the people,

religion.

23) I am depressed and I ask God to help me. But my work is to serve

God and not that He should serve me.

24) An individual, personal life is an illusion. There is no such

life; there is only function, a tool, for something.

25) ... is vestigial, having no application, like the appendix.

26) We complain at our depressed spirits, but they are necessary.

Man cannot stay on that height to which he sometimes rises; but man

rises and then hypnotises himself for the time of his depression and

in the time of his depression he already acts from the view-point that

was disclosed to him in the moment of rising. If only to know how

to make use of those moments of rising and to know how to hypnotise

oneself!

27) The evil of the world, its cause is very simple. Every one seeks

_midi à quatorze heures_--now in the economic system, now in the

political. I just now read the discussions in the German parliament,

on how to keep the peasants from running to the cities. But the

solution of all problems is one and no one recognises it and it does

not even seem to be of interest to them. But the solution is one,

clear and undoubted: ... The salvation is one: the destruction of

false teaching.

28) The difference between people: N thinks about death, and that

does not lead him farther than the question of how and to whom he

should leave his money, where and how be buried. And Pascal also

thinks about death.

29) ...

30) There is no future. It is made by us.

31) The infinity of time and space is not a sign of the greatness

of the human mind, but on the contrary, it is a sign of its

incompleteness, of its inevitable falsity.

32) We think of the future, we build it; but nothing future is

important, because the important thing is to do the creative work of

love, which can be done under every possible condition; and therefore

it is altogether indifferent, what the future will be.

33) We get angry at circumstances, are pained, wish to change them,

but all possible circumstances are nothing else than indications as

to how to act in different spheres. If you are in need, you must

work, if in prison--think, and if in wealth, free yourself ... etc.

It is just like a horse getting angry with the road on which he is

being led.

34) The press--that is a lie: _with a vengeance_.[383]

35) Everything is divided. Only God unites us, living in everything.

That is why He is love.

36) The conception of God to a religious man, is continuously

destroyed and being replaced by a new, higher conception.

37) ...--is not only the loss of labour, of lives, but the loss of

the good.

38) With many people it is possible to live only when you treat

them as you would a horse: not to take them into consideration, not

reproaching them, not suggesting, but only finding a _modus vivendi_.

It is about them: “Not to cast pearls” ... It is terrible, but

without this rule, it would be worse.

39) Is it possible to imagine to oneself a Socialist working-man

with faith in the Iversk Ikon? Then, first of all, there must be a

religious emancipation.

40) We are all agreed that only he is free who has overcome passion,

and yet knowing this, we seriously trouble ourselves with the freeing

of people who are full of passions.

41) A rational conviction can never be complete. A full conviction

can only be irrational, especially with women.

42) Answer good for evil and you destroy in an evil man all pleasure

which he receives from evil.

43) God is love. We know God only in love, which unites everything.

You know God in yourself through the striving towards this union.

44) One continually thinks that the good will be good for him. But

the good is, or it is not--it is not something that _will be_.

45) The important thing lies in thoughts. Thoughts are the beginning

of everything. And thoughts can be directed. And therefore the

principal task of perfection is--to work on thoughts.

_June 27. If I live. Y. P._

_To-day July 4th. Y. P._

All this time I have been ill with my usual stomach sickness. The

work which absorbed me very much, has stopped.

Christ as a myth;[384] and Kenworthy’s book, a rational exposition

of the life of Christ. The first is better. There is need of a

philosophy of moral economy, i.e., of religious truth. There is such

a thing.

I have had many good thoughts, being ill and nearing death. I think

often with pain of brother S.

I have noted down the 4th:

1) The government destroys faith, but faith is necessary. Some

violating themselves believe in the miraculous, in the absurd;

others in science. But in which? In the contemporary. But in the

contemporary, there is 99/100 of lie and error. In every contemporary

science there are lies. Truth revealed by God is of course the right,

it is religion; and truth obtained by the reason of man, by science,

is also of course, the right. But the matter lies in recognising

what is discovered by God and what has been gained by human reason.

2) Death is the destruction of those organs by means of which I

perceive the world as it appears in this life; it is the destruction

of that glass through which I looked and a change to another.

3) Educated people using their education not for the enlightenment

and freeing of the working-classes, but for befogging them, are

like workers using their strength not for sustaining life but for

destroying it. These are the intellectual Pugachevs, Stenka Razins,

only a thousand times more dangerous.

_July 5. Y. P. If I live._

_To-day September 28. Y. P._

Have worked all the time on _Resurrection_; now I have stumbled on

the third part. It is long since I have made no progress.

... I have wrought for myself a calm which is not to be disturbed:

not to speak and to know that this is necessary; that it is under

these conditions one ought to live.

There are here Ilya, Sonya[385] with the children, Andrusha with

his wife, Masha with her husband.

I am thinking more and more often about the philosophic definition of

space and time. To-day, if I have time, I am going to write it out.

I read an interesting book about Christ never having been, that it

was a myth.[386] The probabilities that it is right--there are as

many _for_ it, as there are _against_.

Yesterday with the help of Masha I answered all the letters; many

remained unanswered. I am still ill; rarely a day without pain. I am

dissatisfied with myself, also morally. I have let myself go very

much--I do not work physically and I am occupied with myself, with

my health. How difficult it is to bear sickness resignedly, to go

unto death without resistance--and one must.

I have been thinking during this time:

1) Women demanding for themselves the work of man and the same

freedom, mostly demand for themselves unconsciously the freedom for

licence, and as a result go down much lower than the family, though

aiming to stand higher than it.

2) What is this memory which makes from me one being, from childhood

unto death? What is this faculty connecting separate beings in time,

into one? One ought to ask not what is it that unites, but what

divides, these beings. The faculty of time divides, beyond which

I cannot see myself. I am one indivisible being from birth until

death; but to manifest and to know myself, I must do so in time. I

am now such as I was and will be; but one who had to and even will

manifest myself and know myself in time. I have to manifest myself

and know myself in time--for communion with other beings and for

influencing them.

3) I plucked a flower and threw it away. There were so many of

them, it was no pity. We do not value these inimitable beauties of

living beings and destroy them, having no pity not only for plants,

but for animals, human people. There are so many of them. Culture,

civilisation, is nothing else than the ruin of these beauties and

the replacing them ... with what? The saloon, the theatre ...

4) They reproach you with malice, debauchery, lies, thefts, bring

proof, etc. What is to be done? Answer the question with What time

is it? Are you going to take a swim? Have you seen N N, etc. That

is the best and only means of bearing these accusations and even

clearing them up.

5) The dearest thing on earth is the good relation between people;

but the establishment of these relations is not the result of

conversation--on the contrary, they become spoiled by conversation.

Speak as little as possible, and especially with those people with

whom you want to be in good relation.

6) In eating, I destroy the limits between myself and other beings;

creating children, I do almost the same thing. The results of the

destruction of material limits are visible; the results of the

destruction of the spiritual limits and the union resulting from

this are invisible, only because they are broader.

7) “People are divided (divided from other beings), and this appears

to them as space. The fact that they are inseparable in essence

appears to them as time.” That is the way I have noted it. Space

divides, time unites. But this is untrue. Both time and space are

dividers and they form the impossibility of realising unity. (Unclear,

but I understand. I will make it clear later.)

8) Brotherhood is natural, proper to people. Non-brotherhood,

divisions, are carefully nurtured.

9) Sometimes one feels like complaining childishly to some one (to

God), to beg for help. Is this feeling good? It is not good: it is a

weakness, a lack of faith. That which more than anything resembles

faith--the beseeching prayer, is in truth a lack of faith--a lack

of faith that there is no evil, that there is nothing to ask for,

that if things are going badly with you, then it only demonstrates

that you ought to improve yourself, and that there is going on, that

very thing which ought to be, and under which you ought to do that

which has to be done.

10) Just now I wrote this coldly, understanding with difficulty that

state in which you wish to live for God alone, and I see through

this how there are people who absolutely never understand this, not

knowing any other kind of life besides the worldly, for people. I

know this state, but cannot just now call it up in myself, but only

remember it.

11) Everything which lives without consciousness, as I live when I

sleep, as I lived in the womb of my mother, lives not materially,

i.e., not knowing matter, but lives. But life is something spiritual.

Endeavouring to remember my state before consciousness, on the

threshold of consciousness, I know only the feeling of depression,

satisfaction, pleasure, suffering, but there is no conception of

my body or of another’s. The conception of body (matter) manifests

itself only when consciousness is manifested. The conception of body

manifests itself only, because consciousness gives understanding of

the presence in one’s self of the basis of everything (spiritual).

And at the same time, as I know that I am the basis of everything,

I know also that I am not the whole basis, but a part of it. And it

is this being a part of a whole, these limits separating me from the

whole, I know through my body: through my own body and the bodies

surrounding me.

12) If you desire something, if you are afraid of something, that

means that you do not believe in that God of love which is in you.

If you had believed in Him, then you could not have wanted anything

or have been afraid, because all desires of that God which lives in

you are being always fulfilled, because God is all-powerful; and

you would never have been afraid, because for God there is nothing

terrible.

13) Not to think that you know in what the will of God really lies,

but to be humble; and then you will be loving. And the will of God

in relation to you, lies only in this.

14) People convincing others that reason cannot be the guide of life

are those in whom reason is so perverted, that they clearly see that

they have been led into a swamp.

15) The only instance where a man can and ought to occupy himself

with himself, is when he feels unhappy. Unhappiness is the best

condition for perfection, the ascent to the higher steps. Unhappiness

is a sign of one’s own imperfection. One ought to rejoice at these

instances: it is the preparation of one’s self for work, a spiritual

food.

16) Now I am an ordinary man, L. N. (Tolstoi), and animal, and now

I am the messenger of God. I am all the time the same man, but now

I am the public and now I am the judge himself with the chain,

fulfilling the highest responsibilities. One must put on the chain

more often.

Latterly I have got out of the habit, have weakened. I have only

just now remembered.

17) Man is a being beyond time and beyond space who is conscious of

himself in the conditions of space and time.

18) Games, cards, women, races, are alluring because they have been

thought out for the _blasés_. It is not for nothing that the wise

teachers have forbidden them. Artificial play is corrupting. They

are needed for the _blasé_, but the simple working people need the

very simplest plays without preparation.

19) Only then will you produce true love, when you will resist

offence, overcome offence with love, will love your enemy.

20) They desire, they are excited, they suffer only for trifles or for

bad things. The good things are accomplished without excitement. It is

from this that the word heart means malice. (_Serdit_, to get angry,

to put into a passion, comes from _sertse_, the heart.--_Translator’s

note._)

_To-day Oct. 2. Y. P._

I am still ill,--I am not suffering, but I feel threatened constantly.

Morally I am better--I remember God in myself more often, and

death. It seems to me I have come out of the difficult place in

_Resurrection_.... Kolichka went away. Sonya arrived--she is ill.

I am continuing to write out from the notebooks:

1) I have made this note: Space comes from the consciousness of

limits, from the consciousness of one’s own separateness; I am one,

and the world is another. And in the world are similar beings with

limits: 2, 3, 4, ... to infinity.

These beings can find place only in space. From the consciousness

of limits comes also time. I have thought this out again and can

express it in this way: Separateness, the non-all-comprehensiveness

of our _selves_, is expressed in recognising a part of moving matter

as ourselves. The part of matter which we recognise as ourselves

gives us an understanding of space; that part of motion which we

recognise as ourselves gives us a conception of time.

Or, in other words: We cannot imagine a part of matter in any other

way than in space. To imagine a part of motion, we cannot in any other

way than in time. Space comes from the impossibility of imagining two

or many objects beyond time. Time comes from the impossibility of

imagining two, many objects beyond space. Space is the possibility

of representing to one’s self two, many objects at one and the same

time. Time is the possibility of representing to one’s self two,

many objects, in one and the same space (one goes out, the other

enters).

Divisions cannot be in one space, without time. If there were no time

(motion) all objects in space would be unmoving and they would form

not many objects, but one space, undivided and filled with matter. If

there were no space, there could be no motion and our “self” would

not be separated by anything from all the rest. My body understood

by me as my “self,” and understanding all the rest, is that part

of matter which moves for a definite time and occupies a definite

space.

(Not good, unclear, perhaps even untrue.)

2) Anarchy does not mean the absence of institutions, but only the

absence of those institutions to which people are compelled to submit

by force, but those institutions to which people submit themselves

voluntarily, rationally. It seems to me that otherwise there cannot

be established and ought not to be, a society of beings endowed with

reason.

3) “Why is it that after sin, suffering does not follow that person

who committed the sin? Then he would see what ought not to be

done”--because people live not separately but in society and if

every one suffered from the sin of each one, then every one would

have to resist it.

4) Conscience is the memory of society assimilated by separate

individuals.

5) In old age you experience the same thing as on a journey. At first

your thoughts are on that place from which you are going, then on

the journey itself, and then on the place to which you are going.

I experience this more and more often, thinking of death.

6) It is true that a great sin might be beneficial, by calling forth

repentance before God, independently from human judgment. Such a

sin leads one away from the realm of human judgment, from vanity,

which masters man and hides from him his relation to God.[387]

7) The physical growth is only a preparation of material for spiritual

work, the service to God and man which begins with the withering of

the body.

_To-day Oct. 13. Y. P._

I am still not fully well. It is as it ought to be. But that does

not hinder from living, thinking and moving towards a fixed goal.

_Resurrection_ advances poorly. Have sent away four chapters, I think

not passable by the censor, but at least I think I have settled on one

point, and that I won’t make any more great important changes. I do

not cease thinking of brother Sergei, but because of the weather and

ill health I cannot make up my mind to go.... Sonya was in Moscow and

is going again to-day. To-day I had a kind of intellectual idleness,

not only to-day, but all these latter days. For _Resurrection_ I

have thought out good scenes. Concerning separateness which appears

to us as matter in space and movement in time, I am thinking more

and more often and more and more clearly.

I have also received Westrup’s pamphlets from America about the

money,[388] which struck me by explaining everything that was unclear

in financial questions and reducing everything as it ought to be,

to violence.... If I get time I will write it out. I have another

important, joyous thought, although an old one, but which came to

me as a new one and which makes me very happy, namely:

1) The principal cause of family unhappiness--is because people are

brought up to think that marriage gives happiness. Sex attraction

induces to marriage and it takes the form of a promise, a hope, for

happiness, which is supported by public opinion and literature; but

marriage is not happiness, but always suffering, which man pays for

the satisfaction of his sex desire. Suffering in the form of lack of

freedom, slavery, over-satiety, disgust of all kinds of spiritual and

physical defects of the mate which one has to bear; maliciousness,

stupidity, falsity, vanity, drunkenness, laziness, miserliness,

greed and corruption--all defects which are especially difficult

to bear when not in oneself but in another person, and from which

one suffers as if they were one’s own; and the same with physical

defects: ugliness, uncleanliness, stench, sores, insanity, etc.,

which are even more difficult to bear when not in oneself. All this,

or at least something of this, will always be and to bear them will

be difficult for every one. But that which ought to compensate: the

care, satisfaction, aid, all these things are taken as a matter of

course; while all defects as if they were not a matter of course, and

the more one expected happiness from marriage the more one suffers.

The principal cause of this suffering, is that one expects that which

does not happen, and does not expect that which always happens.

And therefore escape from this suffering is only by not expecting

joys, but by expecting the bad, being prepared to bear them. If you

expect all that which is described in the beginning of “The Thousand

and One Nights,” if you expect drunkenness, stench, disgusting

diseases--then obstinacy, untruthfulness, even drunkenness, can, if

not exactly be forgiven, at least be a matter of no suffering and

one can rejoice that there is absent that which might have been,

that which is described in “The Thousand and One Nights”: that there

is no insanity, cancer, etc. And then everything that is good will

be appreciated.

But is it not in this, that the principal means of happiness in

general lie? And is it not therefore that people are so often unhappy,

especially the rich ones? Instead of recognising oneself in the

condition of a slave who has to labour for himself and for others,

and to labour in the way that the master wishes, people imagine

that every kind of pleasure awaits them, that their whole work lies

in enjoying them. How not be unhappy under this circumstance?

Then everything: work and obstacles and illnesses--the necessary

conditions of life--appear as unexpected, terrible calamities. The

poor, therefore, are less often unhappy: they know beforehand that

before them lie labour, struggle, obstacles, and therefore they

appreciate everything which gives them joy. But the rich, expecting

only joys, see a calamity in every obstacle, and do not notice and

do not appreciate those goods which they are enjoying. “Blessed be

the poor, for they shall be comforted; the hungry, for they shall

be fed; and woe unto ye, the rich.”

_Oct. 14. Y. P. If I live._

_Oct. 27. Y. P._

We are living alone: ... Olga,[389] Andrusha, Julie[390] and Andrei

Dmitrievich.[391] Everything is all right, but I am often indisposed:

there are more ill days than healthy ones and therefore I write

little. Sent off 19 chapters,[392] very much unfinished. I am working

on the end.

I have thought much, and perhaps well:

1) About the freedom of the will, _simply_: Man is free in everything

spiritual, in love: he can love or not love, more and less. In

everything remaining he is _not_ free, consequently in everything

material. Man can direct and not direct his strength towards the

service of God. In this one thing (but it is an enormous thing),

he is free: he can pull or be driven.

2) ... of the workers, prostitution and many other things, all this

is a necessary, inevitable consequence and condition of the pagan

order of life in which we live, and to change either one or many

of these, is impossible. What is to be done? Change the very order

of this life, that on which it stands. How? By this, in the first

place, by not taking part in this order, in that which supports it

... etc. And, second, to do that in which man alone is absolutely

free: to change selfishness in his soul and everything which flows

from it: malice, greed, violence, and everything else by love and by

all that which flows from it: reasonableness, humility, kindness and

the rest. It is impossible to turn back the wheel of a machine by

force,--they are all bound together with cogs and other wheels--but

to let the steam go which will move them or not let it go is easy;

thus it is terribly difficult to change the very outer conditions

of life, but to be good or bad is easy. But this being good or evil

changes all the outer conditions of life.

3) Our life is the freeing of the enclosed--the expansion of the

limits in which the illimitable principle acts. This expansion of

the limits appears to us as matter in motion. The limit of expansion

in space appears to us as matter. That part of matter which we

recognise as ourselves we call our body; the other part we call the

world. The limit of expansion in time we call motion. That part of

motion which we recognise as ourselves we call our life; the other

part we call the life of the world. All of life is the expansion of

these limits, the being freed from them.

(All unclear, inexact.)

_Nov. 20. Moscow._

Much I have not written out. I am in Moscow.... For 70 years I have

been lowering and lowering my opinion of women and still it has to

be lowered more and more. The woman question! How can there not be a

woman question? Only not in this, how women should begin to direct

life, but in this, how they should stop ruining it.

All morning I have not been writing and have been thinking two things:

1) We speak of the end of life--although it is true, not the one which

we understand, but the one which would be understood by the highest

reason. The purpose is just the same as the cause. The cause is

looking backward, the purpose is looking forward, but the cause, the

conception of the cause (and therefore of an end) appears only then

when there is time, i.e., a being is limited in his conceptions by

time. And therefore for God, and for man living a Godly life, there

is no purpose. There is life in which consciousness grows (?[393])

and that is all.

2) A drop fusing with a great drop, a pool, ceases to be and begins

to be.

_To-day December 18. Moscow._

Almost a month I have not written. Have been severely ill.[394] Had

acute pain for one day, then a respite, and weakness. And death

became more than natural, almost desirable. And so it has remained

now, when I am getting well--that is a new, joyous step.

Finished _Resurrection_. Not good, uncorrected, hurried; but it has

fallen from me and I am no longer interested. Serezha is here, Masha

and her husband, Maria Alexandrovna.

I am all right. Have not yet begun to write anything. More than

anything I am occupied with ______,[395] but I have no desire for

anything very much, am resting. Wrote letters.

I am attempting to write out my notes:

1) (Trifles) about many-voiced music. It is necessary that the voice

say something, but here there are many voices and each one says

nothing.

2) One of the principal causes of evil in our life is the faith

cultivated in our Christian world, the faith in the crude Hebrew

personal God, when the principal sign (if one can express it so)

of God is that he is not limited, by anything, consequently not

personal.

3) One should conquer death--not death, but the fear of death coming

from a lack of understanding of life. If only you understand life

and its necessarily good purpose--death--then you cease to fear it,

to resist it. And when you cease to fear it, you cease to serve

yourself, a mortal, and you will serve an immortal: God, from whom

you came and to whom you are going.

4) Matter is everything which is accessible to our senses. Science

forces us to suppose matter inaccessible to our senses. In this

realm, there can be beings composed of that matter and perceiving

it, matter inaccessible to our senses. I do not think that there are

such beings; I only think that our matter and our senses perceiving

it, are only one of _innumerable_[396] possibilities of life.

5) “I am a slave, I am a worm, I am a Czar, I am a God.”[397] Slave

and worm true, but Czar and God untrue. It is in vain that people

attribute a special significance and greatness to his reason. The

limits of human reason are very narrow and are seen at once. These

limits are the infinity of space and time. Man sees the final answers

to the questions he asks himself, recede and recede in time and also

in space, and in both these realms.

6) I read about Englehardt’s book: _Evolution, the Progress of

Cruelty_.[398] I think that here there is a great deal of truth.

Cruelty has increased mainly because division of labour has been

brought to pass, which assists the increase of the material wealth

of man. Every one speaks of the benefits of the division of

labour, not seeing that the inevitable condition of the division

of labour, besides the _mechanising_ of man, is also the removing

of those conditions which call forth a human, moral communion

between people. If we are doing the same work, as agricultural

labourers, then naturally there would be established between us an

exchange of service, a mutual aid, but between the shepherd and the

factory-weaver, there can be no communion.

(This seems untrue; I shall think it over.)

7) What would God’s attitude be towards prayer, if there were such a

God to whom one could pray? Just the same as would be the attitude

of the owner of a house where water had been introduced and to whom

the inhabitants would come to ask for water. The water has been

introduced. You have only to turn the tap. In the same way everything

has been prepared for men which is necessary to them, and God is

not at fault that instead of making use of the clean water which

was there, some of the tenants carry water from a stagnant pond,

others fall into despair from lack of water and beg for that which

had been given them in such abundance.

8) ...

9) One can by personal experience verify the truth, that God, a

part of Whom is my own _self_, is love, and by the experimental way

convince one’s self of this truth. As soon as love is violated, life

ends. There is no desire to do anything, everything is depressing,

and on the contrary, as soon as love is restored, as soon as you

have made peace with those whom you quarrelled, forgiven, received

forgiveness--then you wish to live, to act, everything seems easy

and possible.

10) It would be good to express even in approximate numbers and then

graphically, that quantity of labour, of working days, which rich

people use up in their lives. Approximately more or less, this could

be expressed by money. If I spend 10 roubles a day, that means that

20 men are working constantly for me. (Unclear, not what I want

to say.)

11) They generally say: “That is very deep, and therefore not to be

fully understood.” This is untrue. On the contrary. Everything that

is deep is clear to transparency. Just as water is murky on top,

but the deeper it is, the more transparent.

12) One small part of people, about 20 per cent., is insane by

itself, possessed by a mania of egoism, which reaches to the point of

concentration of all spiritual strengths on oneself; another, the

greater part, almost 80 per cent., is hypnotised by the scientific,

by the artistic ... and principally ... hypnotism, and also does not

make use of its reason. Therefore progress in the world is always

attained by the insane possessed by the same kind of insanity by

which the majority is possessed.

13) I experience the feeling of peace, of satisfaction, when I am

ill, when there takes place in me the destruction of the limits of

my personality. As soon as I get well I experience the opposite:

restlessness, dissatisfaction. Are these not obvious signs that

the destruction of the limits of personality in this world, is the

entrance of life into new limits?

I have finished.

_December 19. Moscow. If I live._

_To-day December 20. Moscow._

My health is not good. My spiritual condition is good, ready

for death. In the evenings there are many people. I tire. In

number 51,[399] _Resurrection_ did not appear and I was sorry. This

is bad.

I thought out a philosophic definition of life. To-day I thought

well about _The Coupon_.[400] Perhaps I shall write it out.

_Notes_

NOTES TO THE TEXT

BY V. G. CHERTKOV

[1] With the words, “I continue,” Tolstoi begins a new note-book of

the Journal; this note-book presupposes another which the editors

have only in separate fragments. The previous note-book ended with

the following note:

“October 8, 1895, Y. P.

“(I am beginning an entry to-day with just what I finished two

days ago.)

“I have only a short time left to live and I feel terribly like

saying so much: I feel like saying what we can and must and cannot

help believing--about the cruelty of deception which people impose

upon themselves; the economic, political and religious deception,

and about the seduction of stupefying oneself--wine, and tobacco

considered so innocent; and about marriage and about education and

about the horrors.... Everything has ripened and I want to speak

about it. So that there is no time for performing those artistic

stupidities which I was prepared to do in _Resurrection_.

“But just now I asked myself: but can I write, knowing that no one

will read? And I experienced something of disappointment; but only

for a time; that means that there was some love of fame in it. But

there was also the principal thing in it--the need before God.

“Father, help me to follow the same path of love. And I thank Thee.

From Thee flows everything.”

[2] In the original, merely the initials of the phrase are used.

Thus Tolstoi would often finish what he had written during the day

with I. I L. (If I live), marking ahead in this fashion the date of

the following day.

[3] Countess Sophia Andreevna Tolstoi, born Behrs, 1844, wife of

Tolstoi. In the Journal, Tolstoi calls her S., S. A., or Sonya.

[4] “Catechism” Tolstoi called that systematic exposition of his

philosophy in the form of questions and answers which he had begun

about this time. In the text, he calls this work, The Declaration of

Faith, or simply, The Declaration. (See entries December 23, ’95,

and further.) In the following year, 1896, Tolstoi abandoning the

catechism form, continued and finished the work, which, in 1898, was

published under the title _Christian Doctrine_ by _The Free Press_

(_Swobodnoe Slovo_) issued by A. and V. Chertkov, England, and later

in 1905, it appeared also in Russia.

[5] Tolstoi never returned to the continuation and revision of the

plot of the story _Who is Right?_ which had been begun by him about

this time, and so it has remained unfinished. The beginning of the

story as it was written by Tolstoi, is printed in his collected

works (see the full collection of works by Tolstoi, edited by P.

Biriukov, published by Sytin, 1913).

[6] I.e., with Katiusha Maslov and not with Nekhliudov, as the first

form of the novel was begun.

[7] John C. Kenworthy, an English Methodist minister, a writer

and lecturer, who shared at that time the opinions of Tolstoi

and who founded in England an agricultural colony composed of his

co-thinkers. The author of the work, _Tolstoi, His Life and Works_,

London, 1902. There was printed abroad in the Russian Language in

the journal of _The Free Press_ (1899, No. 2, England) his _The

Anatomy of Poverty_. They were lectures to the English workingmen

on political economy, which struck Tolstoi favourably and which he

included in the manuscript which was then being issued under the

title of _Archives of L. N. Tolstoi, No. II_, and to which he even

wrote an introduction. In later life, Kenworthy fell ill of nervous

prostration and was taken to a sanatorium.

[8] Albert Shkarvan, a Slav, who shared Tolstoi’s opinions. An army

surgeon in the hospital in Kashai (Hungary), he resigned from this

service in February, 1895, for religious reasons, for which he was

imprisoned for four months.

[9] The Russian sect of Dukhobors, living in the Caucasus in 1895, to

the number of several thousand souls, upon the suggestion of their

leader, Peter Vasilevich Verigin, who was at that time in exile, gave

notice to the authorities that they would no longer take the oath or

serve in military service, and, in a word, would no longer take any

part in governmental violence, and in the night from the 28th to the

29th of June of that year, burned all their weapons. Cossacks were

sent against them and after some executions, two hundred were put in

prison, many were exiled from their native land and forced to live

in Armenian, Georgian and Tartar villages in the Province of Tiflis;

about two or three families in a village, without land and with the

prohibition against intercourse among themselves. Those Dukhobors

who remained in active service and refused to serve, were sent away

to disciplinary regiments. (See _Dukhobors_, by P. Biriukov, 1908,

publishers, _Posrednik_; besides there is much material pertaining

to the history and the movement of the Dukhobors printed in various

issues of _The Free Press_.)

[10] The manager of the Moscow Little Theatre, Walts, used to call on

Tolstoi for the purpose of receiving information about the staging

of his drama, _The Power of Darkness_.

[11] Ivan Ivanovich Bochkarev (died 1915), former revolutionary

Slavophile who suffered much for his convictions. He became acquainted

with the group of people around Tolstoi because of his belief in

vegetarianism, to which he arrived independently of any one. In his

personal conversations with Tolstoi, Bochkarev disputed his religious

convictions, heatedly denying all his religious metaphysics. At this

time he lived near the village of Ovsiannikovo, six versts from

Yasnaya Polyana, on the estate of Tolstoi’s daughter, T. L. Sukhotin.

[12] Prince Nicholai Leonidovich Obolensky, the grandnephew of

Tolstoi--later married to Tolstoi’s daughter, Maria Lvovna.

[13] Maria Alexandrovna Schmidt, an old friend, who shared Tolstoi’s

opinions and whose personality and whole life, Tolstoi esteemed very

highly. In the Journal of February 18, 1909, he wrote, “I never knew

and do not know any woman spiritually higher than Maria Alexandrovna.”

In the eighties, when class-teacher in the Nicholaievsky Orphan Asylum

in Moscow, Mme. Schmidt made the acquaintance of the forbidden works

of Tolstoi, upon which she left the asylum and went to live on the

land, and up to her death supported herself by the labours of her

own hand. The last ten years of her life she lived near the village

of Ovsiannikovo, on the estate of T. L. Sukhotin, procuring her

livelihood by the sale of the berries and vegetables from her own

garden and the dairy products from her cows. She died October 18,

1911.

[14] With Bochkarev.

[15] Alexander Nikiphorovich Dunaev, an old friend of the Tolstoi

family, later one of the directors of the Moscow Commercial Bank.

[16] Constantin Nicholaievich Zyabrev, nick-named “Bieli” (White), a

peasant from Yasnaya Polyana, who was also called by the villagers,

“the Blessed.” Tolstoi liked to speak with him. He lived in the

greatest poverty and never bothered about the next day. At the time

of the visit, mentioned in the Journal, he was already near death

and soon passed away. Some years before this, Tolstoi helped him to

rebuild his cabin.

[17] Dr. Ivan Romanovich Bazhenov, who lived at this time in

Vladivostok, sent Tolstoi his manuscript essay on the necessity of

calling an ecumenical council and asked his opinion on this question.

In the copy of the Journal at the disposal of the editors, and

perhaps in the original of the Journal, it was written Bozhanov.

[18] A letter from G. F. Van-Duyl from Amsterdam. In the letter of

November 18th, Tolstoi answered his letter as follows:

“Once a man has understood and is permeated with the consciousness

that his true happiness, the happiness of his eternal life, that

which is not limited by this world, consists in the fulfilment of

the will of God and that against this will ... then no consideration

can force this man to act against his true happiness. And if there

is an inner struggle and if, as in that case about which you spoke,

family considerations come out on top, it only serves as a proof

that the true teaching of Christ was not understood and was accepted

by him who could not follow it; this only proves that he wanted to

appear as a Christian, but he was not so in reality.”

[19] Paul Ivanovich Biriukov, one of Tolstoi’s nearest friends and

followers, who later wrote his biography (two volumes, published by

_Posrednik_, Moscow). Tolstoi often calls him Posha in the Journal.

[20] The editors were unable to discover the title of this pamphlet.

[21] Maria Vasilievna Siaskov, an amanuensis, who was employed for

many years in the publishing house of _Posrednik_.

[22] Tatiana Andreevna Kuzminsky (born Behrs), a sister-in-law of

Tolstoi, wife of Senator A. M. Kuzminsky.

[23] _Konevski_, this is the way Tolstoi called the novel,

_Resurrection_, which he had begun then, the subject of which he

adopted at the end of the eighties from stories told by the well-known

Court-worker, A. Th. Koni.

[24] Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), the great German philosopher.

Tolstoi evidently read the translation by Ph. V. Chernigovitz,

_Aphorisms and Maxims_, in two parts, 1891–1892. Tolstoi, as early

as 1869, wrote to A. A. Fet: “Do you know what the present summer

meant to me? Continual enthusiasm over Schopenhauer and a pile

of spiritual pleasures which I never have experienced before....

Schopenhauer is one of the greatest geniuses among people.”

[25] That which was noted down in his pocket note-book--Tolstoi had

the habit of putting down thoughts which came to him and which seemed

to him important in a pocket note-book which never left him. Later he

copied the most valuable thoughts into his Journal, revising, more

or less, as he went along. In rewriting from the note-book Tolstoi

often began the entry with these words, “I have been thinking” or

“I have it noted.”

[26] See Note 4.

[27] This essay, entitled _Shameful_, pointing out the cruelty and

senselessness of corporal punishment which the law at that time

applied to the peasants, was printed with omissions and alterations

in the Russian newspapers and later abroad in full in _Leaflets of

The Free Press_, No. IV, England, 1899; later it was printed in

_The Full Collected Works of L. N. Tolstoi_, published by Sytin,

subscribed and popular editions, volume XVIII.

[28] In the Moscow Little Theatre.

[29] N, a young artist living in the home of the Tolstois, after

refusing military service on account of religious convictions,

was placed in the military hospital in Moscow in the ward for the

diseases of the heart, where he was visited by Tolstoi. Later,

various difficult experiences and spiritual changes led him to agree

to military service....

[30] Nicholai Alexeievitch Philosophov, father of Countess S. N.

Tolstoi, wife of Count I. L. Tolstoi.

[31] A. A. Shkarvan sent Tolstoi his letter entitled “Why It Is

Impossible to Serve as a Military Doctor.” Later this letter, in

revised form, appeared in his book, _My Resignation from Military

Service. Notes of a Military Doctor_. (Published by _The Free Press_,

England, 1898, Chapter IV.)

[32] Maria Lvovna Tolstoi (1872–1906), second daughter of Tolstoi,

afterwards married to Count N. L. Obolensky.

[33] Count Ilya Lvovich Tolstoi (born 1866), second son of Tolstoi.

Has written a book, _My Recollections_ (Moscow, 1914).

[34] Vladimir 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).

[35] Soon Tolstoi began this drama (see entry of January 23, 1896),

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).

[36] The 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.

[37] Ernest 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.

[38] E. 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.

[39] See Note 36.

[40] A voluminous letter devoted to the problem of non-resistance to

evil by violence and the relation of contemporary American writers

to it.

[41] Count 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).

[42] Nicholai 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.”

[43] Fedior Kudinenko, a peasant, a co-thinker of Tolstoi, a former

_gendarme_.

[44] See note 29.

[45] Dushan 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.

[46] The Nazarenes, a sect spread in Hungary, Chorvatia, Serbia,

Bulgaria, Switzerland and the United States, whose members refuse

military service.

[47] Nicholai 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.

[48] The 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.”

[49] Nicholai 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.

[50] Alexander 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.

[51] See Note 38.

[52] M. 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.

[53] Marian 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.

[54] In 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_.

[55] Nicholskoe, an estate of Count Olsuphiev near Moscow, close to

the station of Podsolnechnaia on the Nicholai railroad.

[56] Eugene 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.)

[57] Sergei 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.

[58] Written originally in English.

[59] The 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.

[60] _Here follow words that have been crossed out._ Note made by

Prince N. L. Obolensky in the copy in possession of the editors.

[61] Michail 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.

[62] Countess Tatiana Lvovna Tolstoi (born 1864), the eldest daughter

of Tolstoi. In the year 1899 she married M. S. Sukhotin.

[63] Maria Michailovna Kholevinsky, a woman doctor, living in Tula.

By Administrative order, after the event mentioned in the Journal,

she was exiled to Orenburg.

[64] This 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.)

[65] The 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.”

[66] Aphrikan 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.)

[67] The philosopher’s daughter, Elena Aphrikanovna Spier, who sent

her father’s works to Tolstoi.

[68] Grigori 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.

[69] Dmitri Dmitrievich Sverbeev, the Governor of Courland, an

acquaintance of the Tolstois’.

[70] The cement factory, Gill, within 7 versts of Yasnaya Polyana.

[71] To 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.

[72] The branch post office, 7 versts from Yasnaya Polyana.

[73] Died in 1913.

[74] The 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.

[75] Fedior 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.

[76] Nicholai Nicholaievich Strakhov (died in January of this year).

[77] With F. A. Strakhov.

[78] Timofei Nicholaievich Granovsky (1813–1855), a Russian historian,

a professor at the Moscow University.

[79] Vissarion Grigorevich Bielinsky (1810–1848), the critic--see in

Journal, March 7, 1899, a comparison between Bielinsky and Gogol.

[80] Alexander Alexandrovich Herzen (1812–1870), a great writer. From

1847 to his death he lived abroad as an exile. His collected works

with censor deletions have been published in Russia only in 1905.

Tolstoi as early as August 4, 1860, wrote in his Journal, “Herzen,

a scattered mind, sickly ambition. But his broadness, skilfulness,

kindness and refinement is Russian.” Soon after, in the beginning of

1861, Tolstoi, being abroad, spent a month in London, where he saw

Herzen almost daily. In addition to the opinion expressed in this

note of Tolstoi’s about Herzen, it should be noted that afterwards

Tolstoi, appreciating him from another point of view, acknowledged

a broad educational significance to his works (see, for example,

Journal, October 12, 1895). In the letters to V. G. Chertkov of

February 9, 1888, and to N. N. Gay of February 13 of the same year,

Tolstoi called Herzen “a man remarkable in strength, in mind and in

sincerity” and expressed regret that his works were forbidden in

Russia, as the reading of them, according to his opinion, would be

very instructive to the youth.

[81] Nicholai Gavrilovich Chernishevsky (1828–1889) and Nicholai

Alexandrovich Dobroliubov (1836–1861), Russian critics. Tolstoi

became acquainted with Chernishevsky when he published his works in

_Sovremennik_, which was edited by Chernishevsky.

[82] Five-year-old daughter of F. A. Strakhov.

[83] _Declaration of Faith_, later re-named _The Christian Doctrine_.

[84] The estate of Tolstoi’s brother, S. N. Tolstoi, in the district

of Krapivensk, in the Government of Tula, 35 versts from Yasnaya

Polyana.

[85] Count Sergei Nicholaievich Tolstoi (1826–1904). See for him in

_Biography of L. N. Tolstoi_ by P. Biriukov and in _My Recollections_

by Count I. L. Tolstoi, Moscow, 1914.

[86] The daughters of Count S. N. Tolstoi: Vera, Varvara and Maria

Sergievna.

[87] Charles Salomon, the translator of some of Tolstoi’s works

into French, and a professor of the Russian language in the higher

institutions in Paris.

[88] Sergei Ivanovich Tanyeev (1856–1915), composer, at one time

director at the Moscow Conservatory, an acquaintance of the Tolstoi

family, who lived three summers (1894–1896) in Yasnaya Polyana.

[89] On the Khodinka field at the time of the coronation celebration

of May 18, 1896. In the beginning of the year 1910, Tolstoi wrote a

little story called _Khodinka_, printed for the first time in his

_Posthumous Literary Works_, Volume III, published by A. L. Tolstoi,

Moscow, 1902.

[90] Timofei Nicholaievich Bondarev (1820–1898), a peasant of the

district of the Don. In 1867 he was exiled to Siberia for conversion

to the Jewish faith and lived in the district of Minusinsk, in

the Province of Yeniseisk, to the end of his life. Wrote a work

called _Industriousness and Parasitism, or The Triumph of the

Agricultural Worker_ (issued with abbreviations in 1906 in Petrograd

by _Posrednik_,) in which he proved the moral obligation of each man

to do agricultural work. Tolstoi wrote a long introduction to this

work. As to the impression which this work produced on Tolstoi, he

himself wrote in his book _What Then Shall We Do?_ (1884–1886) the

following: “In all my life, two Russian thinkers had upon me a great

moral influence and enriched my thought and clarified my philosophy.

These people were not Russian poets, scholars, preachers--they

were two remarkable men who are now living, and who all their life

laboured in the _muzhik_ labour of peasants, Siutaev and Bondarev.”

In his letter here mentioned to Bondarev, Tolstoi touched upon those

religious problems which Bondarev asked him. For more details about

Bondarev see in the article of C. S. Shokhor-Trotsky: “Siutaev and

Bondarev” (in the _Tolstoi Annual_, 1913), Petrograd, 1914, issued by

the Tolstoi Museum Society, following which are printed ten letters

by Tolstoi to Bondarev and some writings of Bondarev himself.

[91] _My Refusal From Military Service, The Memoirs of an Army

Physician_, issued by _The Free Press_, 1898, England. Tolstoi read

this work even before, in manuscript, and at this time probably was

re-reading it. In his letter to A. A. Shkarvan of December 16, 1895,

Tolstoi wrote: “Your memoirs are interesting and important to the

highest degree. I read them with spiritual joy and was touched.”

[92] See Note 29.

[93] Stephane Mallarmé (1842–1898), French poet, considered one of

the most prominent Symbolists. For a more detailed opinion of him

by Tolstoi, see his book, _What Is Art?_ Chapter X.

[94] Goethe (1749–1832), the German poet. See for Tolstoi’s opinion

of him in his Journal, September 13, 1906. Earlier in 1891, in his

letter to Countess A. A. Tolstoi, Tolstoi wrote: “As to Goethe, I

do not like him at all. I don’t like his conceited paganism.”

Shakespeare (1564–1616). See Tolstoi’s article about him “On

Shakespeare” and “On The Drama” and the opinion in his journal

March 15, 1897.

[95] Declaration of Faith.

[96] Henry George (1839–1897), noted American social worker and

writer on economic questions. In his numerous works, chiefly on

agrarian questions, he was a warm defender of the destitute and the

oppressed. George considered the existence of private land ownership

as the principal cause of the existence of poverty; appearing as

its opponent, he suggested the abolition of all existing taxes,

substituting for them a _single tax_ on the value of land; by means

of this reform, land would pass into the hands of people cultivating

it by their own labour, because for people who did not work it, it

would be unprofitable to own great stretches of land, since they

would have to pay a large amount of taxes on them.

Tolstoi sympathised very much with George’s scheme and wrote much

about it (_The Great Sin_, _The Only Possible Solution of the Land

Question_, _A Letter to a Peasant_ and some chapters in _Resurrection_

and others). Of the works of George, Tolstoi recognised as the

best his _Social Problems_, to the Russian translation of which he

wrote a preface. In the last years of George’s life, Tolstoi was

in correspondence with him; in his letter to him of 1894 Tolstoi

among other things wrote: “The reading of each one of your books

clarifies for me much which formerly was not clear to me and

convinces me more and more of the truth and practicality of your

system” [translated from the Russian from a translation from the

English.--_Translator’s note_]. On the occasion of George’s death,

Tolstoi wrote to Countess S. A. Tolstoi on October 24, 1897:

“Serezha told me yesterday that Henry George was dead. Strange to

say, his death struck me as the death of a very close friend. The

death of Alexandre Dumas produced the same impression upon me.

One feels as if it were the loss of a real comrade and friend.”

Many works of George’s are translated into the Russian; there is a

splendid biography of him written by S. D. Nicholaev, and published

by _Posrednik_: _The Great Fighter for Land Liberation, Henry

George_, Moscow, 1906.

[97] Anna Constantinovna Chertkov.

[98] In the letter to Count L. L. Tolstoi of June 7, 1896, Tolstoi

related the incident as follows: “Yesterday a remarkable event

happened to me. Two or three times there came to me a young civilian

from Tula asking me to give him books. I gave him some of my articles

and spoke with him. He was, according to his convictions, a Nihilist

and an Atheist. I told him from the bottom of my heart all that I

thought. Yesterday he came and gave me a note: ‘Read it,’ he said,

‘then tell me what you think of me.’ In the note it was written

that he was a junior officer in the gendarmerie, a spy, sent to me

to find out what is going on here, and that he became unbearably

conscience-stricken and that is why he disclosed himself to me. I

felt pity and disgust and pleasure.”

[99] The priest, John Ilich Sergiev (of Kronstadt) (1829–1908),

who enjoyed great fame as “The supplicator for the sick.” In his

preaching and his books he many times made sharp attacks against

Tolstoi and his views.

[100] Declaration of Faith.

[101] Zakaz, a piece of Yasnaya Polyana forest, not far from the

house. Tolstoi was afterwards buried there.

[102] Tolstoi had the opportunity to closely observe the nomadic

life of the Bashkirs in the province of Samara, where he went in

the Sixties to drink kumyss, and in the Seventies and Eighties to

his own estates (see _The Biography of L. N. Tolstoi_ written by

P. I. Biriukov (Moscow, 1913) published by _Posrednik_, Volume II,