I am again feeling unwell and very sweetly sad. Wrote a letter to the Chertkovs and to Posha. Am not working.
Feb. 17. Nicholskoe.
I do not feel well. I tried to write on art. . . .
. . . Received letters; an adaptation of On Life from the American. 178 Wrote two letters to Sonya yesterday and sent them to-day. 179
Having been thinking even before Petersburg:
1) (For The Appeal) : To describe the con-dition of the factory workers, the servants, sol-diers, agricultural labourers in comparison with the rich, and show that it all comes from. . . .
2) In the Middle Ages, in the Xlth Century, poetry was general the people and the masters, les courtois et les vilains; then they separated and
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les vilains began to mimic the masters’ and the masters the people’s. A union ought to take place again.
3) A hundred times I have said it to myself and have written it down : the real and only salva-tion from all sorrow is the knowledge of one’s mission, the anxiety whether you have done that for which you were sent.
4) Nearly every husband and wife reproach each other for things for which they do not con-sider themselves guilty. But on the one side there is no ceasing to accuse, nor on the other to vindi-cate.
5) They do not run after a poet or a painter so much, as after an actor, and especially after a musician. Music calls forth a direct physical effect, sometimes acute, sometimes chronic.
6) We absolutely falsely ascribe intelligence and goodness to talent, and the same to beauty. In this lies great self-delusion.
7) It came into my head with remarkable clear-ness that in order to always feel good, it is neces-sary always to think of others, especially when you speak with some one.
8) The movement of life, the broadening of a separate being gives time. If there would be no movement, no enlarging of love, then there would be no time; as to space, it is the representation of other beings. If there were no other beings,
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there would be no space. (All nonsense, un-thought).
9) Women are deprived of a moral sense for a motor. They haven’t got this sail spread and therefore it does not carry. Feb. 18, Nicholskoe. If I live.
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 pro-portion to His strength. I shall try. Help me, Lord. I shall take up the letters. Here de-mands 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 ig. 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
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trying to work, I took a walk. Extreme weak-ness. My soul is calm, only it is a bore that I am unable to work. The house is full of peo-pie.
. . . Yesterday I wrote many letters.
I walked and thought:
There is no greater cause for error and confu-sion 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 unex-pected 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.
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Perhaps I omitted the 2 1st. 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 writ-ing 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 know-ing 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 morn-ing 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. Yes-terday there was music. . . . To-day an amateur theatrical. Tania and Michail Adamovich
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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 (Benard) on aesthetics. 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 temp-tations 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 tempta-tions.
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.
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3) … a general, respectable, clean, correct, with thick eye-brows and important mien ( and un-commonly good-natured, but deprived of every moral motive sense) gave me the striking thought, as to how and by what means those most indiffer-ent to social life, to the good of society as to how just those people rise involuntarily to the po-sition of rulers of people. I see how he will man-age institutions upon which a million lives depend, and just because he likes cleanliness, elegance, re-fined food, dancing, hunting, billiards and every possible kind of amusement, and not having the means to keep himself in those regiments, or in-stitutions, or societies where all this exist, is ad-vanced 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 Pol-itics (Book VII, Chapter VIII): “Dans cette republique parfaite, ou la vertu des citoyens sera reele, ils s’abstiendront de toute profession me-chanique, de toute speculation mercantile, travaux degrades (degradants?) 186 et contraires a la vertu. Ils ne se livreront pas davantage a 1’agricul-ture. II faut du loisir pour acquerir la ver-tu “.. . m
All his aesthetics has for its end ( ) 188
virtue. And we with the Christian understanding of the brotherhood of man want to be guided by
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the ethical and aesthetical conception of the an-cients ! 1 Feb. 25. Nicholskoe. If I live.
February 25. Nicholskoe.
I am alive. I have written a little not as easily as yesterday. The guests have departed. Went for a walk twice. Am reading Aristotle. To-day I received letters . . .
Yesterday, while walking, I prayed and exper-ienced a remarkable sensation which is perhaps similar to that which the mystics excite in them-selves by spiritual works; I felt myself to be a spiritual, free being bound by the illusion of the body. Feb. 26. Nicholskoe. If I live.
Feb. 26, Nicholskoe.
I am alive. I am writing, so as to keep my resolution. To-day I wrote letters all morning, but I had no energy for work.
Went to Mme. Shorin. 189 I had a good talk with her. Perhaps even to some purpose. Just as Anna Michailovna 19 said to-day, that I helped her. And thanks be.
I copied the letter to Posha.
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Feb. 27. Nicholskoe.
Wrote this morning poorly, but cleared up something or other. Am well. Took a
