. . . Well, enough about this.
I am going to write out what I thought during this time :
i ) When all is said and done, it is those people over whom violence is used who always rule, i.e., those who fulfil the law of non-resistance. So women seek rights, but it is they who rule, just because they are the ones subjected to force they were and they still are. Institutions are in the power of men, but public opinion is in the power of women. And public opinion is a million times stronger than any laws and armies. The proof that public opinion is in the hands of women is that not only the construction of homes, food, are determined by women, and not only do the women spend the wealth, consequently control the labour of men, but the success of works of art, of books, even the appointment of rulers, are deter-mined by public opinion; and public opinion is determined by women. Some one well said that
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men must seek emancipation from women, and not the contrary.
2 ) ( For The Appeal) . 17 Unmask the deceiv-ers, spread the truth and do not fear. If it were a matter of spreading deception and murder, then of course, it would be terrible, but here you would be spreading the freedom from deception and murder. Besides, there is no ground for fear. Of whom? They . . . are themselves afraid.
I remember there worked for us in our village a weak and phlegmatic 12 year-old boy who once caught on the road and brought back, an enormous healthy peasant, a thief, who had taken a coat from the hall.
3) The poets, the verse-makers torture their tongues in order to be able to say every possible kind of thought in every possible variety of word and to be able to form from all these words some-thing which resembles a thought. Such exercise can only be indulged in by unserious people. And so it is.
4) If we never moved, then everything which we saw would appear to us flat and not in perspective. Motion gives us a conception of things in three dimensions of space. The same thing is true concerning the material side of things : if we weren’t living, were not moving in life, we would see only the material side of things; but moving in life, moving our spiritual side across the material side of the world, we recognise the falseness of the idea that the material is actually such as it appears to us.
5) Twenty times I have repeated it, and 20 times the thought comes to me as new, that re-lease from all excitement, fear, suffering, from physical and especially from spiritual, lies in de-stroying in one’s self the illusion of the union of one’s spiritual “ self “ with one’s physical. And this is always possible. When the illusion is destroyed then the spiritual “ self “ can suffer only from the fact that it is joined to the physi-cal, but not from hunger, pain, sorrow, jeal-ousy, shame, etc. In the first case, as long as it is joined it does that which the physical “ self “ wants: it gets angry, condemns, scolds, strikes; in the second case, when it is separated from the physical, it does only that which can free it from the torturing union. And only the manifestations of love frees it.
6) For the article on Art. When it is beauty that is recognised as the aim of art, then every-thing will be art which for certain people will ap-pear as beauty, i.e., everything which will please certain people.
7) I have noted, “ the harm of art, especially music “ and I wanted to write that I had forgot-ten, but while I was writing, I remembered. The
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harm of art is principally this, that it takes up time, hiding from people their idleness. I know that it is harmful when it encourages idleness both for the producers and those who enjoy it, but I cannot see a clear definition of when it is permis-sible, useful, good. I should like to say only then when it is a rest from labour, like sleep, but I do not yet know if that is so.
8 ) ( For The Appeal) . You are mistaken, you poor, if you think that you can shame or touch or convince the rich man to divide with you. He cannot do that because he sees that you want the same thing that he wants and that you are fighting him with the same means with which he fights you. You will not only convince him, but you will com-pel him to yield to you only by ceasing to seek that which he seeks, ceasing to struggle with him, but if you cease to struggle you will cease also . . . (very important).
9) If the end of art is not the good, but pleas-ure, then the distribution of art will be different. If its end is the good, then it will inevitably be spread among the greatest number of people; if its end is pleasure, then it will be confined to a small number (not exact and still unclear).
10) Art is I was going to write food, but it is better to say sleep, necessary for the sus-tenance of the spiritual life. Sleep is useful, nec-
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essary after labour. But artificial sleep is harm-ful, does not refresh, does not stimulate, but weakens.
1 1 ) I heard counterpoint singing and . . . 171 This is the destruction of music, a means of per-verting it. There is no sense to it, no melody, and any first senseless sequence of sounds are taken and from the combination of these insignificant sequences is formed some kind of a tedious resem-blance to music. The best is when the last chord is finished.
12) The most severe and consequential agnos-tic, whether he wants it or does not want it, recog-nises God. He cannot but recognise that in the first place, in the existence both of himself and of the whole world, there is some meaning inac-cessible to him; and in the second, there is a law of his life, a law to which he can submit or from which he can escape. And it is this recognition of the highest meaning of life, inaccessible to man but inevitably existing, and of the law of one’s life, which is God and His will. And this recognition of God is immensely stronger than the recognition of … etc. To believe like this means to dig to bedrock, to the mainland, and to build the house on that.
13) Stepa 172 related the physiologic process which takes place in the infant when it separates from its mother. Truly it is a miracle.
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This thought occupied me in relation to the doc-trine that everything material is illusion. How can illusion take place there where I do not see it? As you see it, so it takes place. You see every-thing through your glasses. That is well enough as regards all other phenomena, but here the most fundamental thing is taking place, that from which the whole of my life and of everything living is composed: the detachment from the world. And here right in front of my eyes this detachment is taking place; there was one and there became two, like among the first cells, (unclear.)
14) Every living being carries within himself all the possibilities of its ancestors. Having been detached, he manifests several of them, but car-ries in himself the remaining ones and acquires new ones. In this lies the process of life; to unite and to separate. (Still more unclear.)
I have decided no matter what happens, to write every day. Nothing strengthens one so much for the good. It is the best prayer.
Evening, February 4. Nicholskoe.
In the morning I wrote this diary and later tried to write, but could do nothing; had no desire. Undoubtedly if there be strength and capacity to write, then one ought to serve God.
It is just as gloomy. I do not pray enough, hourly.
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February 5, Nicholskoe.
Still the same intellectual, creative, weakness. But I think it is almost hopeless. There was a search at Chertkov’s. S. arrived.
I thought: I, a worker, am I doing the work commanded? In this is everything. Lord, help me.
Feb. 6. Nicholskoe.
In the morning Gorbunov arrived; in the even-ing a telegram that the Chertkovs are leaving on Thursday. 173 I prepared to go with Sonya. 174 Am just going. Health better.
Feb. 7. Petersburg.
Went to Chertkov. It is joyous there. Then to Yaroshenko. 175
… I pray that I do not abandon here or any-where the consciousness of my mission, to be ful-filled by kindness. Feb. 8. Petersburg. If I live.
I was alive, but made no entries the two days. To-day, Feb. 10.
It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, silence. I was at Stasov’s and Tolstoi’s. 178 Did nothing
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bad, but nothing good either. Rather some good. Lord keep me from a spell, but I am better. Have thought nothing.
Again at the Olsuphievs in Nicholskoe, Feb. 16.
I returned on the morning of the day before yesterday, and fell ill. Yesterday I was better, wrote on art. Good.
. . . Women do not consider the demands of reason binding upon themselves and cannot
