The Journal of Leo Tolstoy

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The Journal of Leo Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy

Translated in 1917 by Rose Strunsky

• Introduction by Rose Strunsky
• Explanatory Notes to Text, by V. G. Chertkov
• A short Sketch of the Life of Tolstoi at the End of the Nineties, by C. Shokor-Trotsky

Contents 1 Random break 2 1895 2.1 October 2.1.1 October 28. Yasnaya Polyana. 2.1.2 Oct. 29. Yasnaya Polyana. 2.2 November 2.2.1 Nov. 5. Y. P. 2.2.2 Nov. 6. Y. P. 2.2.3 November 7. Y. P. 2.2.4 November 8,9. Y. P. 2.2.5 November 10. Y. P. 2.2.6 Nov. 11. Y.P. 3 To-day November 75. 3.1 December 4 1896 4.1 January 4.2 February 4.3 March 4.4 April 4.5 May 4.6 June 4.7 July 4.8 August 4.9 September 4.10 October 4.11 November 4.12 December 5 1897 5.1 January 5.2 February 5.3 March 5.4 April 5.5 May 5.6 June 5.7 July 5.8 August 5.9 September 5.10 October 5.11 November 5.12 December 6 1898 6.1 January 6.2 February 6.3 March 6.4 April 6.5 May 6.6 June 6.7 July 6.8 August 6.9 September 6.10 October 6.11 November 6.12 December 7 1899 7.1 January 7.2 February 7.3 March 7.4 April 7.5 May 7.6 June 7.7 July 7.8 August 7.9 September 7.10 October 7.11 November 7.12 December 8 Journal 8.1 December 7. Moscow. 9 Random break 10 Random break 11 Random break 12 Random break 13 End of notes

[edit] Random break

[edit] 1895

[edit] October

[edit] October 28. Yasnaya Polyana.

Have been thinking:

Have been thinking one thing: that this life which we see around us is a movement of matter according to fixed, well-known laws ; but that in us we feel the presence of an altogether different law, having nothing in common with the others and re- quiring from us the fulfilment of its demands. It can be said that we see and recognise all the other laws only because we have in us this law. If we did not recognise this law, we would not recognise the others.

This law is different from all the rest, principally in this, that those other laws are outside of us and forces us to obey them ; but this law is in us and more than in us; it is our very selves and there- fore it does not force us when we obey it, but on the contrary frees us, because in following it we become ourselves. And for this reason we are drawn to fulfil this law and we sooner or later will inevitably fulfil it. In this then consists the freedom of the will. This freedom consists in this, that we should recognise that which is namely that this inner law is ourselves.

This inner law is what we call reason, conscience, love, the good, God. These words have different meanings, but all from different angles mean one and the same thing. In our understanding of this inner law, the son of God, consists indeed the essence of the Christian doctrine.

The world can be looked upon in this way: a world exists governed by certain, well-known laws, and within this world are beings subject to the same laws, but who at the same time bear in them- selves another law not in accord with the former laws of the world, a higher law, and this law must inevitably triumph within these beings and defeat the lower law. And in this struggle and in the gradual victory of the higher law over the lower, in this only is life for man and the whole world.

[edit] Oct. 29. Yasnaya Polyana.

If I live.

[edit] November

[edit] Nov. 5. Y. P.

I have skipped 6 days. It seems to me, I thought little during this time: I wrote a little, chopped wood and was indisposed but lived through much. I lived through much, because in fulfilling a promise to S. 3 , I read through all my journals for the past seven years.

It seems to me, I am approaching a simple and clear expression of that by which I live. How good that I didn't finish the Catechism ! 4 I think I shall write it differently and better, if the Father wishes it. I understand why it is impossible to say it quickly. If it could be said all at once, by what then would we live in the realm of thought? It will never be given me to go farther than this task.

I just took a walk and understood clearly why I can't make Resurrection go better : it was begun falsely. I understood this in thinking over again the story: Who is Right? 5 (about children). I understood that one must begin with the life of the peasants, that they are the subject, they are positive, but that the other thing is shadow, the other thing is negative. And I understood the same thing about Resurrection. One must begin with her. 6 I want to begin immediately.

During this time there were letters : from Ken- worthy, 7 a beautiful one from Shkarvan, 8 and from a Dukhobor in Tiflis. 9

Have written to no one for a long time. Gen- eral indisposition and no energy. The stage man- ager and the decorator 10 were here, students from Kharkov against whom I think I did not sin, Ivan Ivanovich Bochkarev, 11 Kolasha. 12 . . .

[edit] Nov. 6. Y. P.

If I live.

[edit] November 7. Y. P.

I wrote a little these two days on the new Resur- rection. My conscience hurts when I remember how trivially I began it. So far, I rejoice when I think of the work as I am beginning it.

I chopped a little. I went to Ovsiannikovo, had a good talk with Maria Alexandrovna 13 and Ivan Ivanovich. 14 Waltz's assistant was here and a Frenchman with a poem. . . .

[edit] November 8,9. Y. P.

Have written little on Resurrection. I was not disappointed, but I was weak.

Yesterday Dunaev 15 came. Chopped much yesterday, overtired myself. To-day I walked. I went to Constantine Bieli's. 16 He is very much to be pitied. Then I walked in the village. It is good with them, but with us it is shameful. Wrote letters. Wrote to Bazhenov 17 and three others. Thought :

1 ) The. confirmation of the fact, that reason liberates the latent love in man for justice is the proverb, " Comprendre c'est tout pardoner." If you forgive a man, you will love him. To for- give means to cease to condemn and to hate.

2) If a man believes something at the word of another, he will lose his belief in that which he would have inevitably believed in, had he not trusted the other one. He who believes in ... etc., ceases to believe in reason. They even say straight out, one ought not to believe in reason.

3) ....

A very interesting letter from Holland, about what a youth is to do who is called to military service, when he is the sole supporter of his mother. 18

[edit] November 10. Y. P.

Slept with difficulty. Weakness both physical and intellectual and for which I am at fault also moral. Rode horseback. Posha 19 arrived. ... A wonderful French pamphlet about war. 20 Yes, 20 years are needed for that thought to be- come a general one. My head aches and seems to crackle and rumble. Father, help me when I am most weak that I may not fall morally. It is possible.

[edit] Nov. 11. Y.P.

If I live.

I write and think: it is possible that I won't be. Every day I make attempts, and I get more accustomed to it.

[edit] To-day November 75.

I have been so weak all the time I could write nothing except a few letters. A letter to Shkarvan. There have been here, Dunaiev, Posha, Maria Vasilievna. 21 They left yesterday. Yes- terday also I went to see Maria Alexandrovna ; she is ill. To-day Aunt Tanya 22 and Sonya came.

I didn't sleep at night and therefore didn't work. But I wrote on the girl Konefsky 23 and a little in my journal. I am reading Schopen- hauer's 24 "Aphorisms." Very good. Only put " The service of God " instead of " The recogni- tion of the vanity of life," and we agree.

Now 2 o'clock, I shall write out later what I have noted down. 25

[edit] December

[edit] 1896

[edit] January

[edit] February

[edit] March

[edit] April

[edit] May

[edit] June

[edit] July

[edit] August

[edit] September

[edit] October

[edit] November

[edit] December

[edit] 1897

[edit] January

[edit] February

[edit] March

[edit] April

[edit] May

[edit] June

[edit] July

[edit] August

[edit] September

[edit] October

[edit] November

[edit] December

[edit] 1898

[edit] January

[edit] February

[edit] March

[edit] April

[edit] May

[edit] June

[edit] July

[edit] August

[edit] September

[edit] October

[edit] November

[edit] December

[edit] 1899

[edit] January

[edit] February

[edit] March

[edit] April

[edit] May

[edit] June

[edit] July

[edit] August

[edit] September

[edit] October

[edit] November

[edit] December

[edit] Journal

[edit] December 7. Moscow.

Almost a month since I have made any entries. During this time we moved to Moscow. The weakness has passed a little, and I am working earnestly, though with little success, on the Decla- ration of Faith. 26 Yesterday I wrote a little ar- ticle on whipping. 27 I lay down to sleep in the day and had just dozed off I felt as if some one jerked me; I got up, began to think about whip- ping, and wrote it out.

During this time, I went to the theatre 28 for the rehearsals of the Power of Darkness. Art, be- ginning as a game, has continued to be the toy of adults. This is also proved by music, of which I have heard much. It is ineffectual. On the contrary, it detracts when there is ascribed to it

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the unsuitable meaning which is ascribed to it. Realism, moreover, weakens its significance . . .

N. refused to serve in the military. I called on him. 29 Philosophov 30 died. . . . Wrote sev- eral worthless letters.

I have thought during this time much in meaning. Much of it I could not understand and have forgotten.

1) I have often wanted to suffer, wanted per- secution. That means that I was lazy and didn't want to work, so that others should work for me, torturing me, and I should only suffer.

2) It is terrible, the perversions ... of the mind to which men expose children for their own purposes during the time of their education. The rule of conscious materialism is only explained by this. The child is instilled with such nonsense that afterwards the materialistic, limited, false conception, which is not developed to the conclu- sions which would show its falsity, appears like an enormous conquest of the intellect.

3) I made a note, "Violence frees," and it was something very clear and important, and now I don't remember what it was at all.

/ have remembered. December 23. Violence is a temptation because it frees us from the strain of attention, from the work of reasoning: one must labour to undo a knot; to cut it, is shorter.

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4) A usual perversion of reason, which is made through a violently enforced faith, is to make men satisfied either with idolatry or with materialism, which at bottom is one and the same thing. Faith in the reality of our conceptions is faith in an idol, and the consequences are the same; one must bring sacrifices to it.

5) I can imagine consciousness transferred to the life of the spirit to such a degree that the sufferings of the body would be met gladly.

6) A beautiful woman smiles, and we think that because she smiles she says something good and true when she smiles. But often the smile seasons something entirely foul.

7) Education. It is worth while occupying oneself with education, in order to find out all one's shortcomings. Seeing them, you will begin to correct them. But to correct oneself is indeed the best method of education for one's children and for others' and for grown-up people.

Just now I read a letter from Shkarvan 31 that medical help does not appear to him like a boon, that the lengthening of many empty lives for many hundred years is much less important to him than the weakest blowing, as he writes, (a puff) on the spark of divine love in the heart of another. Here then in this blowing, lies the whole art of education. But to kindle it in others, one must kindle it in oneself.

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DECEMBER] The Journal of Leo Tolstoi

8) To love means to desire that which the beloved object desires. The objects of love de- sire opposing things, and therefore, we can only love that which desires one and the same thing. But that which desires one and the same thing is God.

9) Man beginning to live, loves only himself, and separates himself from other beings in that he constantly loves that which alone constitutes his being. But as soon as he recognises himself as a separate being, he recognises also his own love, and he is no longer content with this love for himself and he begins to love other beings. And the more he lives a conscious life, the greater and greater number of beings he will begin to love, though not with such a stable and unceasing love as that with which he loves himself, but nev- ertheless, in such a way that he wishes good to everything he loves, and he rejoices at this good, and suffers at the evil which tries the beloved beings, and he unites into one all that he loves.

As life is love, why not suppose that my "self," that which I consider to be myself and love with a special love, is perhaps the union I made in a former life of things which I loved, just as I am making a union of things now. The other has already taken place and this one is taking place.

Life is the enlargement of love, the widening of its borders, and this widening is going on in

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various lives. In the present life, this widening appears to me in the form of love. This widen- ing is necessary for my inner life and it is also necessary for the life of this world. But my life can manifest itself not only in this form. It man- ifests itself in an innumerable quantity of forms. Only this one is apparent to me.

But in the meantime, the movement of life un- derstood by me in this world, through the enlarge- ment of love in myself and through the union of beings through love, produces at the same time other effects, one or many, unseen by me. As for instance, I put together 8 toy cubes to make a pic- ture on one side of them, not seeing the other sides of the constructed cubes, but on the other sides are being formed pictures just as regular, though unseen by me.

(All this was very clear when it came into my head, and now I have forgotten everything and the result is nonsense.)

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

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not weakened my faith, but have strengthened it to an enormous degree.

n) Reason is not given that we should rec- ognise what we ought to love; this it won't dis- close; but only for this: to show what we ought not to love.

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

13) Happiness is the satisfaction of the re- quirements of a man's being living from birth to death in this world only; but the good is the satis- faction of the requirements of the eternal essence living in man.

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

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life to fulfil the will of Him who sent him into

this life.

Dec. 8. Moscow. If I live.

Mascha 32 is with Ilia, 33 a loving letter from her to-day.

To-day December 23. Moscow.

It is long since I have made an entry. On the 3Oth, the Chertkovs 34 came. It is two days since Kenworthy arrived. He is very pleasant. . . .

Have continued to write the Declaration am progressing. Off and on, I think out the drama, 35 and yesterday I raved about it all night. I am not well; a bad cold in the head, influenza. Be- cause of the letter to the Englishman, I began also a letter on the collision between England and America. 36

Have been thinking during this time :

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

As long as a man lives for himself unconsciously, he does no harm. If there is a struggle, then the struggle is an unconscious one which is ended at

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once when the struggle with surroundings is ended ; man adjusts himself to it or he goes under, and this struggle is neither cruel nor is it an evil one. The struggle begins to be cruel only when man directs his consciousness upon it, prepares it, strengthens and multiplies its energy tenfold and hundredfold.

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

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

I walked on the street. A wretched beggar ap- proached me. I forgot who I was and passed by. And then suddenly I remembered, and just as naturally as the hungry begin to eat and the tired

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sit down, I turned back and handed him some- thing. It is the same with the temptation to quarrel, to insult, to be vain.

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

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

I just wrote a letter to Crosby. 37 He is work- ing in America. Dec. 24. Moscow. If I live.

Yesterday I received the " Open Letter " of Spielhagen, the Socialist, which appeared in the newspapers with regard to Drozhin. 38

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1896

January 23. Moscow.

Just a month that I made no entries. During this time I wrote a letter about patriotism 39 and a letter to Crosby 40 and here now for two weeks I have been writing the drama. I wrote three acts abominably. I thought to make an outline so as to form the charpente. I have little hope of suc- cess.

Chertkov and Kenworthy went away the 7th. Sonya went to Tver to Andrusha. 41 To-day Na- gornov 42 died. I am again a little indisposed.

I jotted down during this time :

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

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

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

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

Kudinenko 43 was here. A remarkable man. N. took the oath and is serving. 44 A letter from Makovitsky 45 with an article on the Naz- arenes. 46 Jan. 24. Moscow. If I live.

Jan. 25. Moscow.

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

I continue writing the drama. I have written four acts. All bad. But it is beginning to re- semble a real thing. Jan. 26. Mosc. If I live.

January 26. Moscow.

I am alive, but I don't live. Strakhov to- day I heard of his death. 47 To-day they buried Nagornov and that is news. I lay down to sleep, but could not sleep, and there appeared before me so clearly and brightly, an un- derstanding of life whereby we would feel

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ourselves to be travellers. Before us lies a stage of the road with the same well-known conditions. How can one walk along that road otherwise than eagerly, gaily, friendly, and ac- tively together, not grieving over the fact that you yourself are going away or that others are going ahead of you thither, where we shall again be still more together.

To-day I wrote a postscript to the letter to Crosby. A good letter from Kenworthy. Un- pleasantness with N. He is a journalist. Jan. 26 [27?]. Moscow. If I live.

Almost a month that I have made no entries. Today, Feb. 13, Moscow.

I wanted to go to the Olsuphievs. 48 .... There is much bustle here and it takes up much time. I sit down late to my work and there- fore write little. I finished somehow the fifth act of the drama and took up Resurrection. I read over eleven chapters and am gradually ad- vancing. I corrected the letter to Crosby.

An event an important one Strakhov's death, and something else Davydov's conversa- tion with the Emperor. 49

The article by Ertel 50 that the efforts of the lib- erals are useful, and also the letter by Spielhagen on the same theme, 51 provoke me. But I can not, I must not write. I have no time. The letters

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from Sopotsko 52 and Zdziekhovsky 53 on the Orthodox Church and on the Catholic, provoke me on the other hand. However, I shall hardly write. But here yesterday I received a letter from Grinevich's 54 mother on the religious bringing up of children. That I must do. At least I must use all my strength to do this.

Very much music it is useless. ... As re- gards religion, I am very cool at present.

Thought during this time (much I have forgot- ten and have not written down) :

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

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

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

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

4) How does it happen that a clever, educated man believes in the nonsensical? Man thinks that which his heart desires. Only if his heart desires the truth, and only if it does, will he think the truth. But if his heart desires earthly pleasures and peace, he will think of that which will bring

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him earthly pleasures and peace or still something else. But as it is not an attribute of man to have earthly pleasures and peace, he will think falsely; and to be able to think falsely he will hypnotise himself.

(Unclear, not good.) Feb. 14. M. If I live.

To-day February 22. Nicholskoe, at the Olsu- phievs. 55

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

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filment of Thy will, I would not doubt. But doubt comes because I bite the bit and don't feel the reins.

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

During this time, what has happened? Almost nothing. I thought on the Declaration of Faith. // / live. February 23. Nicholskoe.

To-day February 27. Nicholskoe.

Am writing the drama, it moves very stiffly. Indeed I don't even know if I am progressing or not. ... I am very comfortable here ; the impor- tant thing it is quiet.

Read Trilby poor. Wrote letters to Chert- kov, Schmidt, 56 Kenworthy. Read Corneille instructive.

Have been thinking:

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

This is one kind of art, the art of play, of 25

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

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

(This could and should be expressed better.)

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

The 2nd thing that I have been thinking about art, is that nowhere is conservatism so harmful

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as in art. Art is one of the manifestations of the spiritual life of man, and therefore, as when an animal is alive, it breathes and discharges the prod- ucts of its breathing, so when humanity is alive, it manifests activity in art. And therefore, at every given moment it must be contemporaneous the art of our time. One ought only to know where it is (not in the decadence of music, poetry, or the novel) ; and one must seek it not in the past, but in the present. People who wish to show them- selves connoisseurs of art and who therefore praise the past classic art and insult the present, only show by this, that they have no feeling for art.

3) Rachinsky 57 says: "Notice that contem- poraneous with the spread of the use of narcotics, since the ryth century, the astounding progress of science began, and especially of the natural ones." Is it not because of this, I say to him, that the false direction of science has come, the studying of that which is not necessary to man, but is only an object for idle curiosity, or when useful, is not the only thing really necessary? Is it not because of this that from that time on there was neglected the one thing that was necessary, i.e. the settling of moral questions and their application to life?

4) What is the good? I only know a word in Russian which defines this idea. The good is the real good, the good for all, le veritable bien, le bien de tous, what is good for everybody. 58

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

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

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

It is exactly what a man does who lives a bad life, harmful to his health, and who, when he be- comes ill, turns to the doctor so that the latter may cure him, but has no idea that the illness was given to him as a beneficial indicator that his whole life is bad and that he ought to change it. The

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same thing is true with the illnesses in our society; every ill member of society does not remind us that the whole life of our society is irregular and that we ought to change it. But we think that for every such ill member, there is or ought to be, an institution freeing us from this member or even bettering him.

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

It is now 10 o'clock in the evening. I am go- ing to supper. I want to work very much, but am without intellectual energy; a great weakness, yet I want to work terribly. If God would only give it to-morrow. Feb. 28. Nicholskoe. If I live.

To-day March 6. Nicholskoe.

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

To-day I was about to plan something silly: to write out an outline of the Declaration of Faith. Of course it didn't go. In the same way I began and dropped a letter to the Italians. 59

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During this time I jotted down:

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

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

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

And the thought came to me : why is it so now and was not so before? Because before, I did not live the whole of life, but lived only an earthly life. In order to believe in immortality, one must live an immortal life here. One can walk with one's feet and not see the precipice before one, over which it is impossible to cross, and one can rise on one's wings. . . . 60

(It isn't going and I don't feel like thinking.) March 7, 1896. Nicholskoe. If I live.

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To-day May 2. Yasnaya Polyana.

It is almost two months since I have made an entry. All this time I lived in Moscow. Of im- portant events there were : a getting closer to the scribe Novikov 61 who changed his life on account of my books which his brother, a lackey, received from his mistress abroad. A hot-blooded youth. Also his brother, a working man, asked for u What is my Faith?" and Tania 62 sent him to Mme. Kholevinsky. 63 They took Mme. Kholevinsky to prison. The prosecuting attorney said that they ought to go after me. All this together made me write a letter to the ministers of Justice and the Interior in which I begged them to transfer their prosecution to me. 64

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

I heard Wagner's Siegfried. 65 I have many thoughts in connection with this and other things. In all I have jolted down 20 thoughts in my note- book.

Still another important event the work of African Spier. 66 I just read through what I wrote in the beginning of this notebook. At bottom, it is nothing else than a short summary of all of

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Spier's philosophy which I not only had not read at that time, but about which I had not the slight- est idea. This work clarified my ideas on the meaning of life remarkably, and in some ways strengthened them. The essence of his doctrine is that things do not exist, but only our impressions which appear to us in our conception as objects. Conception (Vorstellung) has the quality of be- lieving in the existence of objects. This comes from the fact that the quality of thinking consists in attributing an objectivity to impressions, a sub- stance, and a projecting of them into space.

May 3. Y. P.

Let me write down anything. Am indisposed. Weakness and physical apathy. But think and feel keenly. Yesterday at least, I wrote a few letters: to Spier, 67 Shkarvan, Myasoyedov, 68 Perer, Sverbeev. 69

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

Let me write out something at least from my 2 1 notes.

To-day I worked on the Declaration of Faith.

i) Come and dwell in us and cleanse us of all evil" ... On the contrary: Cleanse thy soul of evil thyself and He will come and dwell in thee. He only waits for this. Like water he flows into

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thee in the measure as room is freed. " Dwell in us." How agonisingly lonely it is without Thee this I experienced these days and how peaceful, firm and joyous, needing nothing and no one when with Thee. Do not leave me !

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

And here I have fallen into a contradiction. I say you have to cleanse yourself, then He will come. But I, not yet having cleansed myself, call upon Him. May 4. If I still live here, Y. P.

May 5. 7. P.

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

To-day I rode past Gill. 70 I thought: no un- dertaking is profitable with a small amount of capital. The more capital, the more profits; the less expenses. But from this it in no way follows that, as Marx says, capitalism will lead to social-

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ism. Perhaps it will lead to it, but to one with force. The workingmen will be compelled to work together, and they will work less and the pay will be more, but there will be the same slav- ery. It is necessary that people work freely in common, that they learn to work for each other, but capitalism doesn't teach them that; on the con- trary, it teaches them envy, greed, selfishness. Therefore, through a forced uniting brought about by capitalism, the material condition of the workers can be bettered, but their contentment can in no way be established. Contentment can only be established through the free union of the workers. And for this it is necessary to learn how to unite, to perfect oneself morally, to will- ingly serve others without being hurt when not re- ceiving a return. And this can't in any way be learned under the capitalistic, competitive system, but under an entirely different one.

I sleep alone downstairs. To-morrow, May 6th, Y. P.

To-day, May 9, Y. P.

Up to now, I haven't yet written out all that I had to. Have been continually indisposed. Notwithstanding this, I work in the mornings. To-day, it seemed to me I advanced very much. Our people have gone away, some to the corona-

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tion, others to Sweden. 71 I am alone with Masha ; she has a sore throat. I am well. May w, If Hive. Y.P.

To-day, May u, Y.P.

Sonya arrived from Moscow. I continue to write the Declaration of Faith. It seems as if I were weakening. To-day I received a letter from N, a tangled up revolutionist. In the evening I rode horseback to Yasenki 72 and thought:

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

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

I know that what he recognises as our being he recognises as a unit. Good. Admitting it is a unit, then it is a divided off, broken off unit, and I am a unit being only within certain limits. And

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

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

(What a lot of nonsense!)

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May 12, Y. P. If I live.

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

To-day already, May 1 6, Y. P. Morning.

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

N. 73 was here; it was a difficult love test. I passed it only outwardly and even then badly. If the examiner had gone along thoroughly, skip- ping about, I would have failed shamefully.

A beautiful article by Menshikov, " The Blun- ders of Fear." 74 How joyous ! I can almost die, even absolutely, and yet it always seems as if there is something still to be done. Do it and the end will take care of itself. If you are no longer fit for the work, you will be changed and a new one will be sent and you will be sent to another work. If only one rises in work!

Strakhov Th. A. 75 was here. The other one, N., 76 came to me in my sleep. I had a talk with him 77 about the Declaration of Faith. In speak- ing to him I felt how hazy was the desire for the good in itself. And I corrected it this way:

i) A man at a certain period of his develop- ment awakens to a consciousness of his life. He

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sees that everything about him lives (and he him- self lived like that before the awakening of his reason) without knowing its life. Now that he has learned that he lives, he understands that force which gives life to the whole world and in his consciousness he coincides with it, but being limited by his separate being (his organism), it seems to him that the purpose of this force which gives life to the world, is the life of his sepa- rate being.

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

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

Man, when awakened to a reasoning conscious- ness, is conscious of life in himself, i. e. of the desire for the good. But since this consciousness is engendered in the separate bodily being of man, since man learns that life is the desire for the good when he is already separated from others by his bodily being, therefore, in the first awakening of man to a reasoning consciousness, it seems to him that life, i. e. the desire for the good which he recognises in himself, has for its object his sep- arate bodily being. And man begins to live con- sciously for the good of his separate being, be-

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gins to use that reason of his which revealed to him the essence of all life ; the desire for the good, in order to secure the good for his own separate being.

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

This same reason which he desires to use for the attainment of the good for his own separate being, shows man that this good is unattainable, that it becomes destroyed by the struggle between the separate beings for the desired good, destroyed by the unpreventable, innumerable disasters and sufferings which threaten man, and above all, by the unavoidable illnesses, sufferings, old age and death which occur in the individual life of man. No matter how man might expand his desire for the good to other beings, he can not but see that all these separate beings are like him, subject to unavoidable sufferings and death and therefore,

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they, just as he, can not have real life by them- selves.

And it is just this error of men who have awak- ened to the consciousness of life that the Christian teaching dissipates, in showing to man that as soon as a consciousness of life has awakened in him, i. e. the desire for the good, then his being, his " self " is no longer his separate bodily being, but that same consciousness of life, the desire for the good not for himself, which was born in his separate being. The consciousness, therefore, of the desire for the good, is the desire for the good for everything existent. And the desire for the good for everything existent, is God.

The Christian teaching teaches just this, that His son, who resembles God, and who was sent by the Father into the world that the will of the Father be fulfilled in him, lives in man with an awakened consciousness (the conversation with Nicodemus.)

The Christian teaching reveals to man with an awakened consciousness, that the meaning and the aim of his life does not consist, as it seemed to him before, in the acquiring of the greater good for his own separate personality or for other such personalities like him, no matter how many they are, but only in the fulfilment in this world of the will of the Father who has sent man into the

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world it reveals also to man the will of the Father in regard to the son. The will of the Father in regard to the son is that there should be manifested in this world that desire for the good which forms the essence of his life, so that man living in this world should wish the good to a greater and greater number of beings and con- sequently he should serve them as he serves his own good. (Confused.)

May 77, Y. P.

Again I am dissatisfied with what I wrote yes- terday and which seemed to me true and full. Last night and this morning I thought about the same thing. Here are the new things which have become clear to me :

1) That the desire for the good is not God, but only one of His manifestations, one of the sides from which we see God. God in me is manifested by the desire for the good;

2) That this God which is enclosed in man, begins to strive to free Himself in broadening and enlarging the being in whom He dwells ; then, see- ing the impassable limits of this being, He tries to free Himself by going outside of this being and embracing other beings;

3) That a reasoning being cannot find room for

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himself in the life of an individual, and that as soon as he becomes reasoning he tries to go out of it;

4) That the Christian teaching reveals to man that the essence of his life is not his separate being, but God, which is enclosed in his being. This God, therefore, becomes known to man through reason and love . . .

I can not write any farther; weak, sleepy.

5) And above all, that the desire for the good for oneself, love for oneself, could exist in man only up to the time when reason had not yet awak- ened in him. But as soon as reason had wakened in him, then it became clear to man that the de- sire for the good for himself a separate being was futile, because the good is not realisable for a separate and mortal being. Just as soon as reason appeared, then there became possible only one kind of desire for the good; the desire for the good for all, because with the desire for the good for all, there is no struggle but union, and no death but the transmission of life. God is not love, but in living, unreasoning beings He is mani- fested through a love for oneself, and in living, reasoning beings, through love for everything that exists.

I am now going to write out the 2 1 points from my notebooks.

i) In order to believe in immortality one has 42

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to live an immortal life here, i. e. to live not to- wards oneself but towards God, not for oneself, but for God. Man, in this life, seems to be stand- ing with one foot on a board and the other on the earth; and as soon as his reason has awakened, he sees that that board upon which he was just about to step lies over an abyss and it not only bends and creaks, but is already falling and man transfers his weight to that foot which stands on the earth. How not be afraid if one stands on that which bends and creaks and falls; and how be afraid, and of what to be afraid, if you stand on that upon which everything falls and below which it is impossible to fall?

2) Read about Granovsky. 78 In our litera- ture it is customary to say, that during the reign of Nicholas conditions were such that it was im- possible to express great thoughts. (Granovsky complains of this and others too.) But the thoughts there were not real. It is all self-decep- tion. If all those Granovskys, Bielinskys, 79 and others had anything to say, they would have said it, no matter what the obstacles. The proof is Herzen. 80 He went away abroad and despite his enormous talent, what did he say that was new, necessary? All those Granovskys, Bielinskys, Chernishevskys, 81 Dobroliubovs, who were raised to great men, ought to be grateful to the govern- ment and the censorship without which they would

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have been the most unnoticed of sketch- writers.

Perhaps the Bielinskys, Granovskys, and the other unimportant ones might have had something real within them, but they stifled it, imagining they had to serve society with the forms of social life and not to serve God by professing the truth and by preaching it without any care about the forms of social life. Let there be contents and the forms will shape themselves.

People acting thus, i. e. adapting their striving for truth to the existing forms of society, are like a being to whom wings have been given to fly, without knowing obstacles, and who used these wings in order to help itself in walking. Such a being would not attain its ends every obstacle would stop it and it would spoil its wings. And then this being would complain that it had been held back and would tell with sorrow (like Gran- ovsky) that it would have gone far if obstacles had not held it back.

The quality of real spiritual activity is such, that it is impossible to hold it back. If it is held back, then it means only one thing: it is not real.

3) Man dying little by little (growing old) experiences that which a sprouting seed ought to experience which has not yet transferred its con- sciousness from the seed to the plant. He feels

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that he grows less, but he is not conscious of him- self there where he increases; in another life. I am beginning to experience this.

4) I wrote down: " -Reason is a tool for the recognition of truth, verification, criticism." I can't remember very well. It seems to me, and I am even certain of it, that it is this :

Under reason is understood many different in- tellectual activities and very complex ones, and therefore the correctness of the solutions of reason is often doubted. As an answer to this doubt, I say, that there is an activity of the reason which is not to be doubted, namely, the critical activity, the activity of verifying what is told me. They tell me that God . . . etc. I submit this to the verification of reason and decide without doubt that that which is not reasonable does not exist for me. It is wrong to say that everything which exists is reasonable, or that everything which is reasonable exists, but it is wrong not to say that that which is unreasonable does not exist for me.

5) It seems to man that his animal life is his real essence and that the spiritual life is the prod- uct of his animal one, just as it seems to a man rowing in a boat that he is standing still and that the banks, and the whole earth, are running past him.

6) There is a goodness which wants to make

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use of the advantages of goodness and does not want to bear the disadvantages of it. That is animal goodness.

7) Christian truth, they say, can not be proved; it must be believed. As if it were easier to become convinced of the truth of the nonsensi- cal than of the reasonable. Why deprive Chris- tianity of the power of convincing? Why?

8) Nature, they say, is economical of its own forces; by the least effort, it attains the greatest results. So is God. To establish the Kingdom of God on earth, of union, of serving one an- other and to destroy hostility, God does not have to do it himself. He has placed His reason in man, which frees love in man and everything which He desires will be done by man. God does His work through us. And there is no time for God or there is infinite time. When he has placed reasoning love in man, he has already done everything.

Why has He done this in this way through man, and not by Himself? The question is stupid and one which never would have entered one's head if we were all not spoilt by absurd supersti- tion. . . .

9) One of the most torturing spiritual suffer- ings is the not being understood by people when you feel yourself hopelessly alone in your thoughts. There is consolation in this, that you

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know that that very thing which people do not understand in you, God understands.

10) To carry over one's "self" from the bodily to the spiritual, that means to consciously wish only the spiritual. My body can uncon- sciously strive for the fleshly, but I consciously desire nothing of the fleshly, as when I do not de- sire to fall, but can not but submit to the law of gravitation.

1 1 ) If you have transferred your " self " to your spiritual being, you will feel the same pain in violating love as you will feel physical pain when you violate the good of the body. The indicator is just as direct and true. And I already feel it.

12) Sin is the strengthening of the conscious- ness of life in one's separate being, or the weak- ening of one's reasoning consciousness, which shows the inconsistency of animal life. For the first end, the activity of reason is directed to the strengthening of the delusion of a separate life: i, food; 2, lust; 3, vanity, strengthened by reason. For the second end, are used the means of weak- ening reason : tobacco, opium, wine.

13) Temptation is the assertion that it is per- mitted to violate love for the greater good: I, to oneself; it is necessary to feed, cure, educate, calm oneself, in order to be in condition to serve men, and for this it is permitted to violate love; 2, one must secure, preserve, and educate the family, and

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for this it is permitted to violate love; 3, one has to organise, secure, protect the community, the state, and for this it is permitted to violate love; 4, one has to contribute to the salvation of the souls of people by violent suggestion, through edu- cation, and for this it is permitted to violate love.

14) The essay on art has to be begun with a discussion of the fact, that for the picture here, which it has cost the master 1000 working days, he is given 40 thousand working days: for an opera, a novel, still more. And then, some say of these works, that they are beautiful; others, that they are absolutely bad. And there is no incontestable criterion. There is no such argu- ment about water, food, and good works. Why is that so?

15) What is the result of a man recognising as his " self " not his own separate being, but God living in him? In the first place, not con- sciously desiring the good for his own separate being, that man will not, or will less eagerly, take the good away from others; in the second place, having recognised as his " self " God, who desires the good for all that exists, man also will desire it.

16) Why do people hold on so passionately to the principle of family, the producing and bringing up of children? Because to a man who has not yet transferred his consciousness from his separate being to that of God, it is the only seem-

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ingly satisfactory explanation of the meaning of life.

17) The meaning of life becomes clear to man when he recognises as himself, his divine essence which is enclosed in his bodily envelope. The meaning of this lies in the fact that this being, striving for its emancipation, for the broadening of the realm of love, accomplishes through this broadening the work of God, which consists in the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.

18) Violence can neither weaken nor strengthen a spiritual movement. To act on spiritual activity by force is just like catching the rays of the sun no matter how you cover them, they will always be on top.

19) I have noted down: "Do you imagine your life in the wood which is being burned down or in the fire which burns? "

It is this way: you get the wood ready, and then you are sorry to use it; in the same way you get yourself ready and then you are sorry. But the comparison is not good, because fire comes to an end. A better comparison would be with food; do you imagine your life in food or in that which is being fed? Is not that the meaning of the words of St. John about " my body ", which ought to be food? Man is food for God if he gives himself to God.

(Unclear; nonsense.) 49

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20) The principal aim of art, if there is art, and if it has an aim, is to manifest and to express the truth about man's soul, to express those mys- teries which it is impossible to express simply by speech. From this springs art. Art is a micro- scope which the artist fixes on the mysteries of his soul and shows to people those mysteries which are common to all.

21 ) Love, enclosed in man and freed by reason, manifests itself in two ways: I, by its expansion, and 2, by the establishment of the Kingdom of God. It is steam which, in spread- ing, works.

22) Lately, I have begun to feel such firm- ness and strength, not my own, but that of that God's work which I wish to serve, that the irrita- tion, the reproaches, the mocking people hostile to the work of God, is strange to me; they are piti- able, touching.

23) The world, living unconsciously, and man, in the period of his childhood, performed unconsciously the work of God. Having awak- ened to consciousness, he does it consciously. In the collision between the two methods of serving, man ought to know that the unconscious passes and will pass into the conscious and not the oppo- site and that therefore it is necessary to give one- self over to the future and not to the past. (Stupid.)

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24) The delusion of man who has awakened to consciousness and who continues to consider his own separate being as himself, is that he con- siders a tool as himself. If you feel pain at the disturbing of the good of your separate being, it is as if you felt on your hand the blows on the tool with which you work. The tool has to be taken care of, ground, but not to be considered as oneself.

25) God Himself is economical. He has to penetrate all with love. He has fired man alone with love and has placed him in the necessity of firing all the rest.

26) Nothing affects the religious outlook so much as the way we look upon the world ; whether with a beginning and an end, as it was looked upon in antiquity, or infinite as it is looked upon now. In a finite world, one can construct a reasonable role for separate mortal man, but in an infinite world the life of such a being has no meaning.

27) (For Kortevsky] It happens to Katiu- sha after her resurrection, that she has certain periods in which she smiles slyly and lazily as if she had forgotten all which she considered true before; she is merely joyous and wants to live.

28) To him who lives a spiritual life entirely, life here becomes so uninteresting and burden- some that he can part with it easily.

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29) Natasha Strakhov 82 asks her father, when he speaks of something which happened when she was not yet born : " Where was I then? " I would have answered : ' You were asleep and had not yet waked up here." Conception, birth, childhood are only a preparation to an awaken- ing, which we see, but not the sleeping ones.

30) The error in which we find ourselves when we consider our separate beings as ourselves is the same as when a traveller counts only one stage as the whole road, or a man, one day as his whole life.

31) Read about . . . and was horrified at the conscious deception of men . . .

32) "An eraser." I have forgotten. I shall recall it.

Have written up to dinner. It is now 2 o'clock and I am going to dine.

May 28, Ysn. Pol. 12 o'c. noon.

It is already several days that I am struggling with my work 83 and am making no progress. I sleep. I wanted to scribble it somehow to the very end, but I can't possibly do it. Am in a wretched mood, aggravated by the emptiness, by the poor, self-satisfied, cold emptiness of my sur- rounding life.

In. the meantime I have been to Pirogovo. 84 I have a most joyous impression; my brother Ser-

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gei 85 has undoubtedly had a spiritual transforma- tion. He himself has formulated the essence of my faith (and he evidently recognises it as true for himself) ; to raise in oneself the spiritual es- sence and to subject to it the animal element. He has a miraculous ikon and he was tortured by his undefined attitude to it. The little girls 86 are very good and live seriously. Masha has been infected by them. Later there were at our house : Salamon, 87 Tanyee. 88 . . .

A terrible event in Moscow the death of three thousand 89 I somehow can not express myself as I ought to. I am indisposed all the time, getting weaker. In Pirogovo, there was the harnessmaker, an intelligent man. Yesterday a working-man came from Tula, intelligent. I think a revolutionist. To-day a seminary student, a touching case.

I am advancing very, very badly in my work. Rather boring letters because they demand polite answers. I have written to Bondarev, 90 Posha, and to some one else. O yes; Officer N. was here too. I think I was useful to him. Splendid notes by Shkarvan. 91

Yesterday there was a letter from poor N. 92 , whom they have driven off to the Persian frontier, hoping to kill him. God help him. And don't forget me. Give me life, life, i. e. a conscious, joyful serving of Thee.

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In the meantime, I thought,

1) It is remarkable how many people see some insoluble problem in evil. I have never seen any problem in it. For me it is now altogether clear that that which we call evil is that good, the action of which we don't yet see.

2) The poetry of Mallarme, 93 and others. We who don't understand it, say boldly that it is humbug, that it is poetry striking an impasse. Why is it that when we hear music which we don't understand and which is just as nonsensical, we don't say that boldly, but say timidly : yes, perhaps one ought to understand it or prepare oneself for it, etc. That is silly. Every work of art is only a work of art when it is understandable, I do not say for all, but for people standing on a certain level of education, on the same level as the man who reads poetry and who judges it.

This reasoning leads me to an absolutely cer- tain conclusion that music before any other art (decadence in poetry and symbolism and other things in painting) has lost its way and struck an impasse. And he who has turned it from the road was that musical genius Beethoven. The principal factors are the authorities and people deprived of aesthetic feeling who judge art.

Goethe ? Shakespeare ? 94 Everything that goes under their names is supposed to be good and on se bat les flancs in order to find something

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beautiful in the stupid and the unsuccessful, and taste is entirely perverted. And all these great talents Goethe, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Mich- ael-Angelo side by side with exquisite things, produced not only mediocre ones, but disgusting ones. The mediocre artists produce a medioc- rity as regards value and never anything very bad. But recognised geniuses create either really great works or absolute stuff and nonsense ; Shakespeare, Goethe, Beethoven, Bach, and others.

3) To place before myself the most complex and confused thing which demands my partici- pation. On all sides it seems there exist insolu- ble dilemmas; it is bad one way and worse the other. And it is only necessary to carry over the problem from the outer realm into the inner, into one's own life, to understand that this is only an arena for my inner perfection, that it is a test, a measure of my moral development, an experiment as to how much I can and want to do the work of God, the enlargement of love, and everything re- solves itself so easily, simply, joyously.

4) A mistake (sin) is the use of reason, given me to recognise my essence in the love for every- thing which exists, in acquiring the good for my separate being. As long as man lived without a reasoning consciousness, he fulfilled the will of God in acquiring the good for himself and in

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struggling for it and there was no sin; but as soon as reason had awakened, then there was sin.

5) The harness-maker, Mikhailo, says to me that he does not believe in a future life, that he thinks that when a man dies, his spirit will leave him and will go away. But I say to him: " Well, go off then with this spirit; then you won't die." May 29, Ysn. Pol. If I live.

It seems to me, June 6, Ysn. Pol.

The principal thing is that during this time I have advanced in my work, 95 and am advancing. I write on sins and the whole work is clear to the end.

Finished Spier splendid.

The economic movement of humanity by three means: the destruction of ownership of land ac- cording to Henry George 98 ; the inheritance which would give over accumulated wealth to society, if not in the first generation, then in the second; and a similar tax on wealth on an excess of over 1000 rubles income for a family or 200 for each man.

To-day the Chertkovs arrived. Galia 97 is very good.

The day before yesterday a gendarme came, a 56 '

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spy, who confessed that he was sent after me. It was both pleasant and nasty. 98

During this time have thought principally the following :

1) When a man lives an animal life, he does not know that God lives through him. When reason awakens in him, then he knows it. And knowing it, he becomes united with God.

2) Man in his animal life has to be guided by instinct; reason directed to that which is not sub- ject to it, will spoil everything.

3) Is not luxury a preparing for something better, when there is already a sufficiency?

Yesterday was not the 6th, but the 8th. To- day, June 9, Y. P.

I have written little and not very well. It seems to me that it is getting clearer. In the morning I had a conversation with the working- men who came for books. I remembered the woman who asked to write to John of Kronstad."

The religion of the people is this : there is a God and there are gods and saints. (Christ came on earth, as a peasant told me to-day, to teach people how and to whom to pray.) The gods and the saints perform miracles, have power over the flesh and perform heroic deeds and good works, and the people have only to pray, to know how

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and to whom to pray. But people can not per- form good works, they can only pray. Here is their whole faith.

I bathed and don't feel well.

June 19, Y. P.

Have been feeling weak all this time and sleep badly. Posha came yesterday. He spoke about the Khodinka accident well, but wrote it badly. Our very idle, luxurious life oppresses me. N. came. A stranger. He is young and he does not understand in the same way as I do, that which he understands, although he agrees with every- thing. Finished the first draft 10 on the I3th of June. Now I am revising it, but am working very little.

. . . Struggled with myself twice and success- fully. Oh, if it were always so !

Once I passed beyond Zakaz 101 at night and wept for joy, being grateful for life. The pic- tures of life in Samara stand out very clearly be- fore me; the steppes, the fight of the nomadic, patriarchic principle with the agricultural civil- ised one. 102 It draws me very much. Konef- sky was not born in me; that is why it moves so awkwardly.

Have been thinking :

i) Something very important about art: what is beauty? Beauty is that which we love. " He

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is not dear because he is good, but good because he is dear." Here is the problem; why dear? Why do we love? And to say that we love, be- cause a thing is beautiful, is just the same as saying that we breathe because the air is pleasant. We find the air pleasant, because we have to breathe; and in the same way we discover beauty, because we have to love. And he who hasn't the power to see spiritual beauty, sees at least a bodily one and loves it.

June 26, Y. P. Morning.

All night I did not sleep. My heart aches without stopping. I continue to suffer and can not subject myself to God. ... I have not mas- tered pride and rebellion and the pain in my heart does not stop. One thing consoles me; I am not alone but with God, and therefore no matter how painful it is, yet I feel that something is taking place within me. Help me, Father.

Yesterday I walked to Baburino 103 and unwil- lingly (I rather would have avoided than sought it), I met the 8o-year-old Akime ploughing, the woman Yaremichov who hasn't a coat to her household and only one jacket, then Maria whose husband was frozen and who has no one to gather her rye and who is starving her child, and Tro- phime and Khaliavka, and the husband and wife were dying as well as the children. And we study

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Beethoven. And I pray that He release me from this life. And again I pray and cry from pain. I am entrapped, sinking, I cannot alone, only I hate myself and my life.

June 30, Ysn. Pol.

Continued to suffer and struggle much, and have conquered neither one nor the other. But it is better. Mme. Annenkov 104 was here and put it very well . . , 105 They have spoiled for me even my diary which I write with the point of view of the possibility of its being read by the living 106

Just now upstairs they began to speak about the New Testament and N. en ricanant proved that Christ advised castration. I became angry, shameful.

Two days ago I went to those who had been burned out; had not dined, was tired and felt well. . . . Yesterday I visited the lawyer who wanted to snatch a hundred rubles from a beggar-woman to decorate his own house with. It is the same everywhere.

During this time I have been in Pirogovo. My brother Serezha has entirely come over to us. The journey with Tania and Chertkov was joy- ous. To-day in Demenka m I gave the last words for his journey to a dying peasant.

I am advancing much on the work. 108 I will 60

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try to write out now what I have jotted down in the book.

To-day, July /p, 109

I am in Pirogovo. I arrived the day before yesterday with Tania and Chertkov. In Serez- ha no there has certainly taken place a spiritual change; he admits it himself saying that he was born several months ago. I am very happy with him.

At home, during this time, I lived through much difficulty. Lord, Father, release me from my base body. Cleanse me and do not let your spirit perish in me and become overgrown. I prayed twice beseechingly; once that He let me be His tool; and second that He save me from my ani- mal " self."

During this time I progressed on the Declara- tion of Faith. It is far from what has to be said and from what I want to say. It is entirely in- accessible to the plain man and the child, but, nevertheless I have said all that I know coherently and logically.

In this time also I wrote the preface to the reading of the Gospels m and annotated the Gos- pels. Had visitors. Englishmen, Americans no one of importance.

I will write out all that I jotted down:

i) Yesterday I walked through a twice 61

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ploughed, black-earth fallow field. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but black earth not one green blade of grass, and there on the edge of the dusty grey road there grew a bush of burdock. There were three off-shoots. One was broken and its white soiled flower hung; the other also broken, was bespattered with black dirt, its stem bent and soiled ; the third shoot stuck out to the side, also black from dust, but still alive and red in the centre. It reminded me of Hadji- Murad. 112 It makes me want to write. It as- serts life to the end, and alone in the midst of the whole field, somehow or other has asserted it.

2) He has a capacity for languages, for math- ematics, is quick to comprehend and to answer, can sing, draw correctly, beautifully, and can write in the same way; but he has no moral or artistic feeling and therefore nothing of his own.

3) Love towards enemies. It is difficult, seldom does it succeed as with everything ab- solutely beautiful. But then what happiness when you attain it ! There is an exquisite sweet- ness in this love, even in the foretaste of it. And this sweetness is just in the inverse ratio to the attractiveness of the object of love. Yes, the spiritual voluptuousness of love towards enemies.

4) Some one makes me suffer. As soon as I think about myself, about my own suffering, the suffering continues to grow and grow and terror

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overcomes me at the thought to where it might lead. It suffices to think of the man on account of whom you are suffering, to think about his suffer- ing and instantly you are healed. Sometimes it is easy when you already love your torturer; but even when it is difficult, it is always possible.

5) Yesterday in walking I thought what are those boundaries which separate us, one being from another ? And it occurred to me. Are not space and time the conditions of these divisions, or rather, the consequences of these divisions? If I were not a separated part, there would be neither space nor time for me, as there is not for God. But since I am not the whole, I can understand myself and other beings through space and time only.

(I feel that there is something in this, but I can not yet express it clearly.)

6) There was an argument about whether be- ing in love was good. For me the conclusion was clear; if a man already lives a human, spiritual life, then being in love love, marriage would be a downfall for him, he would have to give a part of his strength to his wife, to his fam- ily, or even at least to the object of his love. But if he is on the animal plane, if he eats, drinks, labours, holds a post, writes, plays then to be in love would be an uplift for him as for animals, for insects, in the time of . . , 113

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7) To pray? They say that prayer is neces- sary, that it is necessary to have the sweet feeling of prayer which is called forth by service, singing, reading, exclamations, ikons. But what is prayer ? A communion with God, a recognition of one's relation to God, the highest state of the soul. Is it possible that this state of the soul can be at- tained by an action upon the outer senses. ... Is it not more probable that the prayerful state might be reached only in rare exceptional moments and necessarily in isolation, as even Christ said and as Elijah saw God, not in a storm but in a tender breeze?

8) Yesterday I looked through the romances, novels, and poems of Fet. 114 I recalled our in- cessant music on 4 grand-pianos in Yasnaya Poly- ana and it became clear to me that all this the romances, the poems, the music was not art, something important and necessary to people in general, but a self-indulgence of robbers, para- sites, who have nothing in common with life; ro- mances, novels about how one falls in love dis- gustingly, poetry about this or about how one lan- guishes from boredom. And music about the same theme. But life, all life, seethes with its own problems of food, distribution, labour, about faith, about the relations of men ... It is shameful, nasty. Help me, Father, to serve Thee by showing up this lie.

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9) I was going from the Chertkovs on the 5th of July. It was evening, and beauty, happiness, blessedness, lay on everything. But in the world of men? There was greed, malice, envy, cruelty, lust, debauchery. When will it be among men as it is in Nature ? Here there is a struggle, but it is honest, simple, beautiful. But there it is base. I know it and I hate it, because I myself am a man.

(I have not succeeded.)

10) When I suffered in my soul, I tried to calm myself with the consciousness of serving. And that used to calm me, but only then when there happened to be an obvious instance of serv- ing, i. e. when it was unquestionably required and I was drawn to it. But what is to be done when it happens neither one way nor the other? Give myself to God, negate myself. Do as Thou wilt, I consent.

(Again, not what I want to say.) I am going to dinner.

1 1 ) Kant, 115 they tell us, made a revolution in the thought of men. He was the first to show that a thing in itself is inaccessible to knowledge, that the source of knowledge and life is spiritual. But is not that the same which Christ said two thousand years ago, only in a way understand- able to men? Bow in spirit and in truth; the

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spirit is life creating, the letter, the flesh, is bene- ficial in no way.

12) Balls, feasts, spectacles, parades, pleas- ure-gardens, etc., are a dreadful tool in the hands of the organisers. They can have a terrible in- fluence. And if anything has to be subjected to control, it is this.

13) I walked along the road and thought, looking at the forests, the earth, the grass, what a funny mistake it is to think that the world is such as it appears to me. To think that the world is such as it appears to me, means to think that there can be no other being capable of knowledge ex- cept myself with my six senses. 116 I stopped and was writing that down. Sergei Ivanovich 117 ap- proached me. I told him what I was thinking. He said:

" Yes, one thing is true, that the world is not such as we see it and we don't know anything as it is." I said:

' Yes, we know something exactly as it is." "What is it?"

1 That which knows. It is exactly such as we know it."

14) One is often surprised that people are un- grateful. One ought to be surprised at how they could be grateful for good done them. How-

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ever little good people do, they know with certainty that the doing of good is the greatest happi- ness. How then can people be grateful to others that these others have drunk themselves full, when that is the greatest enjoyment?

15) Only he is free whom nothing and no- body can hinder from doing what he wants. There is only one such work to do to love.

1 6) Prayer is directed to a personal God, not because God is personal (I even know as a matter of fact that He is not personal, because the per- sonal is finite and God is infinite), but because I am a personal being. I have a little green glass in my eye and I see everything green. I can not help but see the world green, although I know that it is not like that.

17) The aesthetic pleasure is a pleasure of a lower order. And therefore the highest aes- thetic pleasure leaves one unsatisfied. In fact, the higher the aesthetic pleasure, the more unsatisfied it leaves one. It always makes one want something more and more. And so without end. Only moral good gives full satisfaction. Here there is full satisfaction. Nothing further is wished for or needed.

18) A lie to others is by far neither as im- portant nor as harmful as a lie to oneself. A lie to others is often an innocent play, a satisfying of

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vanity. A lie to oneself is always a perversion of the truth, a turning aside from the demands of life.

19) Although seldom, yet it has happened to me that I have done good from pity, a real good. In that case you never remember what you really have done and under what circumstances. You remember only that you were with God (this oc- curred to me in regard to my favourite boots which I remember I gave away out of pity and for a long time I could not remember where they had gone). It is the same way with all those mo- ments when I was with God, whether in prayer or in the business of life. Memory is a fleshly affair, but .here, the thing is spiritual.

20) Man can not live a fleshly life, if he does not consider himself in the right and he can not live a spiritual life if he does not consider him- self sinful.

21) . . .

I am going to sleep. It is 12:30 in the morn- ing, July 30th. July 3 r, Y. P. If Hive.

[edit] Random break

July 31, Y. P.

I am alive. It is evening now. It is past four. I am lying down and can not fall asleep. My heart aches. I am tired out. I hear through the window they play tennis and are laughing. S.

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went away to the Shenshins. 118 Every one is well, but I am sad and can not master myself. It is like the feeling I had when St. Thomas 119 locked me in and I heard through my prison how every one was gay and was laughing. But I don't want to. One must suffer humiliation and be good. I can do it.

I continue to copy :

1) The disbelief in reason is the source of all evil. This disbelief is reached by the teaching of a distorted faith from childhood. Believe in one miracle and the trust in reason is destroyed.

2) ...

3) Christianity does not give happiness but safety; it lets you down to the bottom from which there is no place to fall.

4) I rode horseback from Tula and thought about this ; that I am a part of Him, separated in a certain way from other such parts, and He is everything, the Father, and I felt love, just love, for Him. Now, especially now, I not only can not reproduce this feeling, but not even recall it. But I was so joyful that I said to myself: Here I was thinking that I can not learn anything new and suddenly I acquired a wonderful blessed new feeling, a real feeling.

5 ) What humbug 12 beauty, truth, good- ness! Beauty is one of those attributes of outer objects, like health, an attribute of the living body.

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Truth is not the ideal of science. The ideal of science is knowledge, not truth. The good can not be placed on the plane with either of these, because it is the goal of life.

(It is unclear, but it was clear and will be.) 6) I do not remember good works, because they are outside of the material man of mem- ory. August i f Ysn Pol If I live. which is doubtful. My heart aches very much. . . .

It is dreadful to think how much time has elapsed; a month and a half. To-day, Sept. 14, Y.P.

During this time I took a trip to the monastery with Sonya. 121 . . . I wrote on Hadji-Murad 122 very poorly, a first draft. I have continued my work on the Declaration of Faith. The Chert- kovs have gone away. . . . All three sons are here now with their wives. 123

There was a letter from the Hollander who has refused to serve. 124 I wrote a preface to the letter. 125 I wrote a letter also to Mme. Kalmi- kov 126 with very sharp statements about the Gov- ernment. The whole month and a half has been condensed in this. Oh, yes; I have also been ill from my usual sickness and my stomach is still not strong.

One thing more. During this time there was a 70

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letter from the Hindu Tod and an exquisite book of Hindu wisdom, loga's Philosophy. 12 ' 1 In the meantime I thought :

1 ) There are many people, especially Euro- peans and especially women, who not only talk but who write things that appear intelligent, in the same way as dumb people speak; as a matter of fact, it isn't any more natural for them to think than for a dumb person to speak, but both one and the other, both the stupid and the dumb, have been taught.

2) To love an individual man, one has to be blinded. Without being blinded one can love only God, but people can be pitied, which means to love in a Godly way.

3) To get rid of an enemy, one must love him, as it is also said in the " Teaching of the twelve apostles." 128 But to love one has to put to one- self the task for all one's life of love towards an enemy, to do him good through love and to per- fect oneself in love for him.

4) At first, one is surprised that stupid peo- ple should have within them such an assertive convincing intonation. But it is as it should be. Otherwise no one would listen to them.

5) I find this note: "A decoration for peas- ants, our happiness " I can not remember what that means, but it is something that pleased me.

The Journal of Leo Tolstoi [1896

I think it means that to a poor man looking on the life of the rich, it appears as happiness. But this happiness is as much happiness, as card- board made into a tree or a castle is a tree or a castle.

6) We are all attracted to the Whole and one to another, like particles of one body. Only our roughness, the lack of smoothness, our angles, in- terfere with our uniting. There is already an attraction, there is no need of making it, but one must plane oneself, wipe out one's angles.

7) One of the strongest means of hypnotism, of exterior action on the spiritual state of man, is his dress. People know that very well; that is why there is a monastic garb in monasteries and a uniform in the army.

8) I was trying to recall two excellent sub- jects for novels, the suicide of old Persianninov and the substitution of a child in an orphan asy- lum.

9) When my weakness tortured me, I sought means of salvation, and I found one in the thought that there is nothing stationary, that everything flows, changes, that all this is for a while, and that it is only necessary to suffer the while while we live I and the others. And some one of us will go away first. (The while does not mean to live in any way, but means, not to despair, to suffer it through to the end.)

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10) I wanted to say that I was grateful, so as to make the other one well disposed, and later to tell the truth. No, I thought, that is not per- mitted. He will ascribe it to his virtues and the truth will be accepted even less. Man, not ac- knowledging his sins, is a vessel hermetically closed with a cover which lets nothing enter. To humble oneself, to repent, that means to take off the cover and to make oneself capable of perfec- tion, of the good.

1 1 ) Barbarism interferes with the union of people, but the same thing is done by a too great refinement without a religious basis. In the other, the physical disunites, and in this, the spir- itual.

12) Man is a tool of God. At first I thought that it was a tool with which man himself was called to work; now I have understood that it is not man who works, but God. The business of man is only to keep himself in order. Like an axe, which would have to keep itself always clean and sharp.

13) Why is it that scoundrels stand for des- potism? Because under an ideal order which pays according to merit, they are badly off. Un- der despotism everything can happen.

14) I often meet people who recognise no God except one which we ourselves recognise in our- selves. And I am astonished; God in me. But

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God is an infinite principle; how then, why then, should He happen to be in me ? It is impossible not to question oneself about this. And as soon as you question yourself, you have to acknowledge an exterior cause. Why do people not feel them- selves in need of answering this question? Be- cause for them, the answer to this question is in the reality of the existing world, whether accord- ing to Moses or to Darwin it is all the same. And therefore, to have a conception of an ex- terior God, one has to understand that that which is actually real, is only the impression of our senses, i. e. it is we ourselves, our spiritual " self."

15) In moments of passion, infatuation, in or- der to conquer, one thing is necessary, to destroy the illusion that it is the " self " who suffers, who desires, and to separate one's true " self " from the troubled waters of passion. Sept. 15. Y. P. If I live.

To-day October 10. Y. P.

It is almost a month that I have made no en- tries and it seemed to me it was only yesterday. During this time, though in very poor form, I finished the Declaration of Faith. During this time there were some Japanese with a letter from Konissi. 129 They, the Japanese, are undoubt- edly nearer Christianity than 6ur church Chris-

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tians. I have learned to love them very much. . . .

I want to write out the whole Declaration of Faith from the beginning again. Yesterday there was a good letter from Verigin, Peter. 130

All last night I thought about the meaning of life and though there are other things to note down, I want to note down this :

The whole world is nothing else than an in- finite space filled with infinitely small, colourless, silently moving particles of matter. At bottom, even this is not so; I know that they are particles of matter only through their impenetrability, but the impenetrability I know only through my sense of touch and my muscle sense. If I did not have this sense, I would not know about impenetrability or about matter. As to motion, also, I, strictly speaking, have no right to speak, because if I did not have the sense of sight or again muscle sense, I would not know anything about motion either.

So that all that I have the right to assert about the outer world is that something exists, some- thing entirely unknown to me, as it was said long ago both by the Brahmins and by Kant and by Berkeley. There is some kind of occasion, some kind of grain of sand which causes irritation in the shell of the snail and produces a pearl (secretion, secretion in the snail). This is our whole outside world.

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What is there then ? There is myself with my representations of myself, of the sun, trees, ani- mals, stones. But what then is it that I call my- self? Is it something arbitrary depending on my- self? No, it is something independent of myself, predetermined. I can not not be myself, and not have that representation which I have, namely, that I include in myself a small part of these moving atoms and call them myself. And all the other remaining atoms I see in the form of be- ings .more or less like myself. The world ap- pears to me to consist entirely of beings which are like me or resemble me. 131

(I have become confused, yet have something to say. I am going to try when I have the strength. )

I am continuing to write out what I had to say and what I dreamt of all night, namely :

People think that their life is in the body, that from that which takes place in the body; from breathing, nutrition, circulation of the blood, etc., life flows. And this seems unquestionable; let nutrition, breathing, circulation of the blood cease and life will end. But what ends is the life of the body, life in this body. . . .

And in fact if you consider that life comes from the process of the body and only in the body then as soon as the processes of the body are ended, then life ought to be ended. But certainly this is an arbitrary assertion. No one has proven and

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can prove that life is only in the body and can not be without the body. To assert this, is all the same as asserting that when the sun has set then the sun has come to an end. One must first de- cide what is life. Is it that which I see in the others as it begins and stops, or is it what I know in myself? If it is what I know in myself, then it is the only thing that is and therefore it can not be destroyed. And the fact that in bodies before me processes end which are connected with life in me and in other beings, shows me only this, that life goes away somewhere from my sensual eyes. To go away entirely, to be destroyed, it absolutely can not be, because outside of it there is nothing in the world. The problem, then, might be this : Will my life be destroyed, can it be destroyed? And the destruction of the body of a man, is that a sign of the destruction of his life? In order to answer this question one must first decide what is life ?

Life is the consciousness of my separateness from other beings, of the existence of other beings and of those limits which separate me from them. My life is not bound up with my body. There may be a body, but no consciousness of separate- ness like for a sleeping one, an idiot, an embryo or for those who have fits.

It is true that there can be no life without the consciousness of the body; but that is because life

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is the consciousness of one's own separateness and of one's own boundaries. But the consciousness of one's own separateness and of one's own bound- aries happens in our life in time and space, but it can happen in any other way and therefore the destruction of the body is not the sign of the de- struction of life.

(Not clear and not what I want to say.) Oct. u. Y. P. If I live.

To-day October 20. Y. P. Morning.

I feel like writing down three things.

i) In a work of art the principal thing is the soul of the author. Therefore among medium productions the feminine ones are the better, the more interesting. A woman will push her- self through now and then, speak out the most inner mysteries of her soul; and that is what is neede