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And if I set myself to develop the idea, I could show to what a degree all three brothers shared in that passionate enthusiasm without which it would have been impossible for one of them to turn into the poet Lyoff Tolstoy. The difference of their attitude to life was determined by the difference of the ways in which they turned their backs on their unfulfilled dreams.
Turgenieff understood Tolstoy; so did Dostoïevsky, and so does latterly the novelist Dmitri Merejkowski. Turgenieff's appeal to Tolstoy is become historic, and all the more pathetic because written on the eve of his death. Dear and beloved Leo Nikolaievitch: I have not written to you for a long time, for I lie on my deathbed. I cannot get well; that is not to be thought of.
When Leo Tolstoy challenged these infamies, and called upon the civilized world on behalf of the victims, the Holy Synod denounced Tolstoy and his followers as a sect "especially dangerous for the Orthodox Church and the state." Later, in 1900, the Holy Synod excommunicated Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church. The fatal logic of fanatical fury led to attacks upon the zemstvos.
Tolstoy could not help getting soaked through with hatred for medicine while he was writing his thick novel.... MOSCOW, November 18, 1891. ... I have read your letter about the influenza and Solovyov. I was unexpectedly aware of a dash of cruelty in it.
It is in this simple way that Merezhkovsky explains the moral evolution which led Tolstoy to make those long and sad studies of a kind of life compatible with the true good of humanity, and forced him to them by "the anguish of the black mystery of death" which, having got possession of the author of "Anna Karenina" in his sixtieth year, in the midst of a life of prosperity, made him hate his fortune and his comfort, which formerly had been so dear to him.
Let's get on with it." Charlie led the way to his car, an elderly red Volvo. "Rocinante," Margery remembered. "As good as ever." Charlie lowered the bag into the back seat. "Could we swing by the library? I need to return these books." "Sure. What have you been reading?" "Tolstoy. The Russians. Dostoyevsky, Chekhov." "That'll get you through a long night."
Many a charity visitor who preaches the gospel of toil is herself, except for some fitful and ineffective "social work," a useless ornament to society who hardly knows the meaning of "toil." If idleness is a mote in the eyes of the poor, it is a beam in the eyes of the rich. Neither blood nor rank nor sex excuses from the universal duty. And cf. W. Dew. Cf. also Tolstoy, in What to Do?
In place of that protest, in place of the poignant indignation which appealed to Stolypin's hangmen to fix their well-soaped noose around his own old neck, since, if any were guilty, it was he in place of the shame and wrath that cried, "I cannot be silent!" we should have had nothing but our own memory and regret, murmuring to ourselves, "If only Tolstoy had been living now!
If you have an army, pray for it; and the only prayer that can be offered is, obviously, not for its defeat. That would be tantamount to praying for the enemy; which might be Scriptural, in one way, but would be neither natural, popular, nor further removed from objections of murder than the other. But Count Tolstoy was logical, also, in another way.
I mean that school of the simple life, commonly associated with Tolstoy. If a perpetual talk about one's own robustness leads to being less robust, it is even more true that a perpetual talking about one's own simplicity leads to being less simple.
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