Tolstoy’s Journal
find out all one’s shortcomings. Seeing them, you
will begin to correct them. But to correct oneself is indeed the best method of education for one’s children and for others’ and for grown-up people.
Just now I read a letter from Shkarvan 31 that medical help does not appear to him like a boon, that the lengthening of many empty lives for many hundred years is much less important to him than the weakest blowing, as he writes, (a puff) on the spark of divine love in the
heart of another. Here then in this blowing, lies the whole art of education. But to kindle it in others, one must kindle it in oneself.
8) To love means to desire that which the beloved object desires. The objects of love de-sire opposing things, and therefore, we can only love that which desires one and the same
thing. But that which desires one and the same
thing is God.
9) Man beginning to live, loves only himself, and separates himself from other beings in that he constantly loves that which alone constitutes his
being. But as soon as he recognises himself as a separate
being, he recognises also his own love, and he is no longer
content with this love for himself and he begins to love other beings. And the
more he lives a conscious life, the greater and greater
number of beings he
will begin to love, though not with such a stable and unceasing love as that with which he loves himself, but nev-ertheless, in such a way that he wishes
good to everything he loves, and he rejoices at this
good, and suffers at the evil which tries the beloved beings, and he unites into one all that he loves.
As life is love, why not suppose that my “self,” that which I consider to be myself and love with a special love, is perhaps the
union I made in a former life of things which I loved, just as I am making a
union of things now. The other has already taken place and this one is taking place.
Life is the enlargement of love, the widening of its borders, and this widening is going on in various lives. In the present life, this widening appears to me in the form of love. This widening is
necessary for my inner life and it is also
necessary for the life of this world. But my life can manifest itself not only in this form. It manifests itself in an innumerable
quantity of forms. Only this one is apparent to me.
But in the meantime, the movement of life un-derstood by me in this world, through the enlarge-ment of love in myself and through the
union of beings through love, produces at the same time other effects, one or many, unseen by me. As for instance, I put together 8 toy cubes to make a picture on one side of them, not seeing the other sides of the constructed cubes, but on the other sides are
being formed pictures just as regular, though unseen by me.
(All this was very clear when it came into my head, and now I have forgotten everything and the result is nonsense.)
10) I have thought much about God, about the
essence of my life, and it seemed I only doubted one and the other and believed in my own conclusions; and then, one time, not long ago, I simply had the desire to lean upon my
faith in God and in the indestructibility of my
soul, and to my astonishment I felt so firm and calm a confidence, as I have never felt before. So that all my doubts and scrutinisings have evidently, not only not weakened my
faith, but have strengthened it to an enormous
degree.
11)
Reason is not
given that we should recognise what we ought to love; this it won’t disclose; but only for this: to show what we ought not to love.
12) As in each piece of handiwork, the prin-cipal art lies not in the regular making of certain things anew, but in the ever bettering of the in-evitable faults of a wrong and ruined work, so even in the business of life, the principal
wisdom is not how to begin to act and how to lead life correctly, but how to better faults, how to liberate oneself from errors and seductions.
13)
Happiness is the
satisfaction of the re-quirements of a man’s
being living from birth to death in this world only; but the
good is the satis-faction of the requirements of the eternal
essence living in man.
14) The
essence of the teachings of Christ consists in this, that man ought to know who he is; that he should understand, like a bird which does not use its wings and runs on the land, that he is not a mortal animal, dependent on the conditions of the world, but like a bird which has understood that it has wings and has
faith in them, he should understand that he himself was never born and never died and always is, and passes through this world in one of the innumerable forms of life to fulfil the
will of Him who sent him into this life.
Dec. 8. Moscow. If I live.
Mascha 32 is with Ilia, 33 a loving letter from her to-day.
To-day December 23. Moscow.
It is long since I have made an entry. On the 3Oth, the Chertkovs 34 came. It is two days since Kenworthy arrived. He is very pleasant. . . .
Have continued to write the Declaration am progressing. Off and on, I think out the drama, 35 and yesterday I raved about it all night. I am not well; a bad cold in the head, influenza. Be-cause of the letter to the Englishman, I began also a letter on the collision between England and America. 36
Have been thinking during this time :
i) I have been thinking especially clearly of that which I have already said many times; that all the evil in the world comes only from this, that people look upon themselves, upon their own
personality, as a worthy object of their conscious life upon themselves or upon a group of personalities, it is all the same.
As long as a man lives for himself unconsciously, he does no harm. If there is a struggle, then the struggle is an
unconscious one which is ended at once when the struggle with surroundings is ended; man adjusts himself to it or he goes under, and this struggle is neither cruel nor is it an evil one. The struggle begins to be cruel only when man directs his
consciousness upon it, prepares it, strengthens and multiplies its energy tenfold and hundredfold.
As
Pascal says: there are three kinds of people; one kind know nothing and sit quietly, and just as quiet are those who know; but there are a middle kind who don’t know but believe they do; from them comes all the evil in the world. They are the people in whom
consciousness has awakened, but they don’t know how to use it.
2) The whole
thing lies in this that you should always remember who you are. There is no situation so difficult, from which the way out would not immediately offer itself, if you only would remember that you are not a temporary, material manifestation, but an eternal omnipresent
being. “ I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me shall never die, and though he were dead yet shall he live. Believest thou this?”
I walked on the street. A wretched beggar approached me. I forgot who I was and passed by. And then suddenly I remembered, and just as naturally as the hungry begin to eat and the tired
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The Journal of Leo Tolstoi [1895
sit down, I turned back and handed him some-thing. It is the same with the temptation to quarrel, to insult, to be vain.
3) One can not voluntarily cease to remain awake, i. e. to fall asleep. Just as little can one voluntarily cease to live. Life is more important than the will, than desire. (Unclear.)
4) Receive with thankfulness the enjoyments of the flesh all that you meet on the way, if they are not sinful in short, if they do not go against your consciousness, if they do not make it suffer. But use the efforts of your will, your liberty, only to serve God.
I just wrote a letter to Crosby. 37 He is work-ing in America. Dec. 24. Moscow. If I live.
Yesterday I received the “ Open Letter “ of Spielhagen, the Socialist, which appeared in the newspapers with regard to Drozhin. 38
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1896
January 23. Moscow.
Just a month that I made no entries. During this time I wrote a letter about patriotism 39 and a letter to Crosby 40 and here now for two weeks I have been writing the drama. I wrote three acts abominably. I thought to make an outline so as to form the charpente. I have little hope of suc-cess.
Chertkov and Kenworthy went away the 7th. Sonya went to Tver to Andrusha. 41 To-day Na-gornov 42 died. I am again a little indisposed.
I jotted down during this time :
1 ) A true work of art a contagious one is produced only when the artist seeks, strives. In poetry this passion for representing that which is, comes from the fact that the artist hopes that hav-ing seen clearly and having fixed that which is, he will understand the meaning of that which is.
2) In every art there are two departures from the way, vulgarity and artificiality. Between them both there is only a narrow