The Journal of Leo Tolstoi (First Volume — 1895–1899) · 30

To-day Sept. 22. Y. P.

... Yesterday I finished the translation with Langlet.

To-day I was busy with Art, but it didn’t go at all, and therefore the preceding did not please me.

S. arrived to-day.

At night I thought of the separation of lust from love, and that ether is a conception outside of the senses.

It is now past twelve in the morning. I am waiting for Ilya and Andrusha. I have just now written a letter to the editor of the Tagblatt Stockholm, and to Chertkov.

September 23. Y. P. If I live.

Oct. 2. Y. P.

I am working all the time on Art. The abscess is going away. I should have liked more peace. Yes...

To-day Oct. 14. Y. P.

... I am still writing on art. To-day I corrected the 10th chapter. I cleared up the vague parts.

I must write out the notebooks; I am afraid I have forgotten much.

1) There is no greater prop for a selfish, peaceful life, than the occupation of art for art’s sake.[151] The despot, the villain, must inevitably love art. (I have jotted down something on this order, but I can’t recall it now.)

2) I imagined clearly to myself how joyous, peaceful, and fully free a life could be, if one gave oneself entirely to God, i.e., in every instance in life to seek only one thing: to do that which He wants—to do that in sickness, in offence, in humiliation, in suffering, in all temptations and in death—which would then be only a change in appointment. Weakness, the non-fulfilment of that which God wants—what happens then? Nothing: There is a return to the consciousness that only in its fulfilment is life. The moments of weakness—they are the intervals between the letters of life, not life. Father, help me.

3) I saw in my sleep how I think, I say, that the whole matter lies in making an effort, that very effort which is spoken of in the Gospels: “The Kingdom of God is attained by effort.” Everything that is good, everything that is real, every true act of life is accomplished through efforts; make no effort, swim with the current and you do not live. But, however, the... doctrine preaches that effort is sin, it is pride, it is relying on one’s own strength: the lay doctrine says the same thing: effort by oneself is useless; organisation, surroundings do everything. What error! Effort is more important than anything.[152] Every least little bit of effort: the conquering of laziness, greed, lust, wrath, depression—is the most important of important things; it is the manifestation of God in life; it is Karma; it is the broadening of one’s “self.” Whatever had been marked off is guess work.[228]

4) Details for Hadji Murad: 1) The shadow of an eagle over the slope of a mountain; 2) at the river, on the sands, are tracks of horses, animals, people; 3) riding into the forest, the horses snort keenly; 4) from behind a clump of trees a goat jumped out.

5) When people are enthusiastic about Shakespeare, Beethoven, they are enthusiastic about their own thoughts, dreams, which are called forth by Shakespeare, Beethoven, just as people in love do not love the object of their love, but what it calls forth in them. In this enthusiasm, there is no true reality of art, but absolute boundlessness.

6) Only then can one understand and feel God when one has understood clearly the unreality of everything material.

7) Not long ago, in the summer, I felt God clearly for the first time; that He existed and that I existed in Him; and that the only thing that existed was I in Him: in Him, like a limited thing in an unlimited thing, in Him also like a limited being in which He existed.

[153]

(Horribly bad, unclear. But I felt it clearly and especially keenly for the first time in my life.)

In general, I don’t know why, but I haven’t the same religious feeling which I had when I formerly wrote my Journal for no one. The fact that it was read and that it can be read, kills this feeling. But the feeling was precious and helped me in life. I am going to begin anew from the present date, the 14th, to write again as before—so that no one will read it during my life time. If there will be thoughts worth it, I can write them out and send them to Chertkov.[229]

8) A man incapable of repentance has no salvation from his sins. Even if his sins are pointed out to him, he only gets angry at those who point them out, and a new sin is added.

9) All attempts to live on the land and feed oneself by one’s own labour have been unsuccessful, and could not help being unsuccessful in Russia, because it is necessary for a man of our education feeding himself by his own labour, to compete with the peasant—who fixes the prices, beating them down by his offer. But he was brought up for generations in stern life and stubborn work, while we were brought up for generations in luxurious life and idle laziness. From this it does not follow that one ought not to try to feed one’s self by one’s own labour, but only that it is impossible[154] to expect its realisation in the first generation.

10) All calamities which are born from sex relations, from being in love, come from this, that we confuse fleshly lust with spiritual life, with—terrible to say—love; we use our reason not to condemn and limit this passion, but to adorn it with the peacock feathers of spirituality. Here is where les extremes se touchent. To attribute every attraction between the sexes to sex desire seems very materialistic, but, on the contrary, it is the most spiritual point of view: to distinguish from the realm of the spiritual everything which does not belong to it, in order to be able to value it highly.

11) Everything that I know is the product of my senses. My senses demonstrate to me my limits, coming in contact with the limits of other beings. This sensation, or the knowledge of limits, we recognise and cannot recognise otherwise, than as matter. And in this matter we see either only matter or beings who like us are bound by limits. The beings near to us in size, from the elephant to the insect, we know—we know their limits. The beings that are far from us in size, like atoms or like the stars, we recognise as matter only. But besides these two kinds of beings which we know by our senses, we must inevitably acknowledge still other beings (not[155] spiritual beings like us,—that is obvious) not recognisable by our senses, but which are material, i.e., they also form limits. Such beings are atoms, ether. The presence of these beings, the admission of which is demanded by our reason, undoubtedly proves that our senses give us only a one-sided and a very limited knowledge of other beings and of the outer world. So that we can imagine for ourselves such beings endowed with such senses (sens) for whom ether would give the very same reality, as matter for us.

(It is still unclear, but understandable.)

12) If we would always remember that our tongue was given us for the transmission of our thoughts, and the capacity of thinking for the understanding of God and His law of love, and that therefore you must talk only then when you have something good to say! But when you cannot say anything good, cannot keep back the bad—then be silent, even all your life.

13) As soon as you have a disagreeable feeling towards a man, it means there is something you don’t know. And you ought to find out: you ought to find out the motives of that act which was disagreeable to you. And as soon as you have understood the motives clearly then it can anger you as little as a falling stone.

14) You get angry at a woman because she does not understand—or she understands, but[156] does not do that which her reason tells her. She is unable to do it. Just as a magnet acts on iron and does not act on wood, so are the conclusions of reason not binding on her—have no motor power. For her feeling is binding, and the conclusions of reasons are so only when they are transmitted by authorities, i.e., by the feeling of the desire not to remain behind others. So that she will not believe and will not follow an obvious demand of reason, if it be not confirmed by an authority; but she will believe and follow the greatest absurdity if only every one does it. She cannot do otherwise. But we get angry. There are also many men like that—womanish.