The Journal of Leo Tolstoi (First Volume — 1895–1899) · 27

Outwardly I am entirely calm, inwardly not entirely. It is enough to bear in mind that everything is for the good, and when I bear that in mind as I do now—it is good.

To-day May 3. Yasnaya Polyana.

Almost a month I have made no entries. A bad and sterile month.

I cut out and burned that which I wrote in heat.[198]

[140]

To-day July 16. Y. P.

It is not one month that I have made no entries, but two and a half. I have lived through much, both the difficult and the good.[199] Have been ill. Very severe pains—I think in the beginning of July.[200]

I worked all this time on the essay on art, and the farther I get the better. I finished it and am correcting it from the beginning.

Masha married.[201]...

We do not quiet, moderate passion, the source of the greatest calamities, but kindle it with all our strength and then we complain that we suffer....

Good letters from Chertkov. A Kiev peasant was here, Shidlovsky.[202]

I feel that I am alone—that my life not only does not interest any one, but that they are bored and ashamed that I continue to occupy myself with such trifles.

I thought during this time:

1) A type of woman—there are men such also, but mostly it is women who are incapable of seeing themselves, as if their necks were stationary and they could not look back at themselves. It isn’t exactly that they don’t want to repent: but they can’t see themselves. They live as they do and not in another way, because this way seems good to them. And therefore if they do anything[141] it is because it seems good to them. Such people are terrifying. And such people may be intelligent, stupid, good, wicked. When they are stupid and wicked it is terrible.

2) With a low moral standard, a firmness of judgment. The acts of all the best people are explained by what I would have done. Christ preached out of vanity, condemned the Pharisees from envy, etc.

3) The second condition of art is novelty. To a child everything is new and therefore it has many artistic impressions. The new for us, is a certain depth of feeling, that depth in which a man finds his separate individuality from all. That is for indifferent art. For the highest, novelty lies only in religion, as religion is the most advanced world point of view.

4) (For the drama.) They bring to the table a man in tatters and they laugh at the inconsistency of it and at his awkwardness. Revolt.

5) When it happens that you thought of something and then forgot what you thought, but you remember and know the character of your thoughts: sad, dismal, oppressive, joyous, keen—and even remember their order: first it was sad, and then it became calm, etc.,—when you remember things that way, then it is exactly what music expresses.

[142]

6) A theme: A passionate young man in love with a mentally diseased woman.

7) God gave us His spirit—love, reason—in order to serve Him; but we use His spirit to serve ourselves—we use the axe to plane the handle.

I feel fully well and strong physically, but morally, weak. I feel like working and am able. I am going to make notes.[203]

July 17. Yasn. Pol. If I live.

July 17. Y. P.

Got up late, worked badly. There is neither concentration nor capacity to embrace everything. Nevertheless I have advanced. Masha came with Kolia...

Yesterday I talked about love with N: that we madly kindle this passion and then we suffer from its exaggerations and excesses.

Went on my bicycle to Yasenki. I love this motion very much. But I am ashamed.

A letter from Chertkov; he is very ill. I value him very much. And how not value him.

It is now 10 o’clock. The Shenshins have left just now. I feel solemn and gloomy.

July 18, 1897. Y. P. If I live.