The Journal of Leo Tolstoi (First Volume — 1895–1899) · 24

Feb. 18. Nicholskoe.

Forty-five years ago I was in battle.[180]

I feel a great sinking in energy. I am very weak, cannot work. But is it not possible to live unceasingly before God, doing His work in proportion to His strength. I shall try. Help me, Lord. I shall take up the letters. Here demands are made, and it is possible to fulfil His work.

Evening. Indisposed. Apathy, weakness. Am not taking up the essay,[181] wrote letters. Just now a letter from Biriukov. I answered it.

February 19. Nicholskoe.

I am just as apathetic, but am not worried. Wrote letters. Wrote to every one. I am going to bed, it is past twelve.

To-day, Feb. 20, Nicholskoe. Seven o’clock in the evening.

I still feel just as badly; constipation and heart-burn. I fell asleep in the morning. Then, not[128] trying to work, I took a walk. Extreme weakness. My soul is calm, only it is a bore that I am unable to work. The house is full of people.

... Yesterday I wrote many letters.

I walked and thought:

There is no greater cause for error and confusion of ideas, the most unexpected ones, and inexplicable in any other way, than the recognition of authorities, i.e., the infallible truthfulness or beauty of certain persons, of books or of works of art. M. Arnold[182] was a thousand times right when he said that the business of criticism lies in detaching the good from the bad, from all that has been written and done, and mainly the bad from that which is recognised as splendid, and the good from that which is recognised as bad, or is not recognised at all. The most striking instance of this error and its terrible consequences, holding back for ages the forward movement of Christian mankind, is the authority of the Holy Scriptures and the Gospels. How many of the most unexpected and remarkable absurdities, sometimes necessary for its own justification, sometimes not necessary for anything, are said and written in the text of the Holy Scriptures.... The same thing happens in the Greek Tragedies, in Vergil, Shakespeare, Goethe, Bach, Beethoven, Raphael and in the new authorities.

[129]

Perhaps I omitted the 21st. To-day, perhaps the 22nd. February, Saturday. Nicholskoe.

Yesterday I did not work. I read through the first draft on art—pretty good. I went for Yushkova’s[183] dress. It was a nice trip. In the evening they spoke about Art and then I heard the brothers Konius[184] who arrived....

To-day I am a little better in my health, I went on skiis and felt weak at heart and uneasy when I went far. It is evening now. I feel like writing letters.

I thought for The Appeal when I looked at the numberless sons of N. in their overcoats: He is bringing them up, “making” men of the world of them. What for?

You will say: you live as you do for the sake of the children. What for? Why bring up another generation of the same cheated slaves, not knowing why they live, and living such a joyless life?

Feb. 23. Nicholskoe. If I live.

February 23, Nicholskoe.

To-day I wrote willingly and eagerly all morning and it seems to me I advanced on the essay on art. Then I took a walk before dinner. There is still a pile of people. No serious talk. Yesterday there was music.... To-day an amateur theatrical. Tania and Michail Adamovich[130] played very well.[185] It is now evening. The day has passed almost without heart-burn.

February 24. Nicholskoe.

To-day I arose apathetic and fell asleep again right after luncheon. After one, I went to meet the riders. Came home, dined. Am struggling successfully with heart-burn. Went for a walk in the evening.

Read and am reading Aristotle (Bénard) on æsthetics. Very important.

Thought during these days:

1) Thought; why is it impossible to even speak to some people... about truth and good—so far are they away from it. This is so, because they are surrounded by such a thick layer of temptations that they have become impenetrable. They are unable to struggle with sin, because they do not see the sin for the temptations. In this lies the principal danger and all the horror of temptations.

2) They say to me when I condemn religious propaganda: You also are preaching. No, I do not preach—mainly because I have nothing to preach. Even to atheists I am not going to preach God (if I preached, I erred). I only draw conclusions from what people accept, pointing out the contradictions which are enclosed in what they accept, and which they do not notice.

[131]

3)... a general, respectable, clean, correct, with thick eye-brows and important mien (and uncommonly good-natured, but deprived of every moral motive sense) gave me the striking thought, as to how and by what means those most indifferent to social life, to the good of society—as to how just those people rise involuntarily to the position of rulers of people. I see how he will manage institutions upon which a million lives depend, and just because he likes cleanliness, elegance, refined food, dancing, hunting, billiards and every possible kind of amusement, and not having the means to keep himself in those regiments, or institutions, or societies where all this exist, is advanced little by little as a good and harmless man and made a ruler of people. All are like N. and their name is legion.

4) I am reading Aristotle. He says in Politics (Book VII, Chapter VIII): “Dans cette république parfaite, où la vertu des citoyens sera réele, ils s’abstiendront de toute profession méchanique, de toute spéculation mercantile, travaux dégradés (dégradants?)[186] et contraires à la vertu. Ils ne se livreront pas davantage á l’agriculture. Il faut du loisir pour acquérir la vertu”...[187]

All his æsthetics has for its end ( )[188] virtue. And we with the Christian understanding of the brotherhood of man want to be guided by[132] the ethical and æsthetical conception of the ancients!!