Isabel Hapgood

“ The poet and author should for example, throw aside their poems and romances, and write songs, histories, and tales which the people can understand; and Tolstoi considers the so-called division of labor, which has formed in our days the indispensable condition of activity on the part of artists and scientists, to be the chief reason for the slow progress of mankind. Science, in the true meaning of the term, he says, has existed as long as man himself has existed, and consists in the knowledge of those things which it most imports men to know. ”

“ In one point they were, in a measure, alike: both Sonya Kovalevsky and Marie Bashkirtseff craved distinction in their work, and yet neither was willing to abdicate the woman's throne in the affections of men. At the bottom of their hearts the women who have won fame, and for any reason, no matter what, have missed the woman's distinctive domestic career, always regret that loss. ”

“ Count Tolstoi's hope is that if a number of his "caste" engage in a similar life, young people will be induced to follow their example. He argues that as it is now the fashion to do many things for one's self which no gentleman thought of doing when he was a boy, so it is a mere question of fashion when gentlemen will feed their own cows and hens, dig, plant potatoes, clean their boots, and wash their shirts; and he defines property as that which cannot be taken from a man, - in other words, his own person alone. ”

“ Nowadays women do not throw down the glove for devoted knights to rescue. They leap boldly into the lists themselves, and wage gallant battle, in company with the warriors, over many serious things, spiritual as well as material, but over none more hotly than over the question of woman's true sphere, and whether the higher education renders a woman unfeminine and unfits her for that sphere. ”

“ Every effort in the life of the wealthy, says Tolstoi, from their food, clothing, and dwellings, down to their cleanliness and their culture, is directed towards keeping the poor at a distance, and nine tenths of their money is spent in attaining this object alone. His socialistic utterances upon this subject are delightfully unconventional, but those on cleanliness, which is regarded as a moral virtue, though in reality only valued as a mark of class distinction, are of the most radical sort. "White hands love other people's work," is the proverb which he takes for his motto. ”

“ Nevertheless, Sonya's modesty amid her triumphs charmed every one; her delightfully dependent helplessness fascinated every man who came near her; while at times her love for woman's work, like embroidery, and her absolute talent for doing nothing for long intervals, drove Professor Mittag-Leffler to despair. ”

“ Copies of the article, printed abroad, and under a different title, supply the suppressed passages, which are generally the most interesting of all. Count Tolstoi's idea of a census is to combine works of mercy with the technical labor: if a starving woman should come under the notice of one of the agents, she should be attended to, even if the census proper should go to destruction in consequence, the succor of the suffering being the most important task of our lives. In short, the census should be simply a means to that end. ”

“ The answer to this is: "I must learn not to live on others, and, having learned this, I must devote to the service of the people hands, and feet, and heart, and brain, and everything that the people may require; for the first and indubitable duty of man is to share in the struggle with nature, for his life and the lives of others." Count Tolstoi regards it as his and every man's first duty to provide his own food, clothing, fuel, and shelter, and thus help others ”

“ Only a strong and deeply interesting personality could worthily give rise to such a conflict, and such a personality Sonya Kovalevsky presented. She had no morbid self-consciousness, no precocious sense of her own importance to the universe, present and future, which could inspire her to keep a diary from the age of twelve, such as that of Marie Bashkirtseff, hitherto the best-known of her countrywomen so far as the revelation of inner life is concerned. ”

“ I do not give them to people, but I say, 'Give me seventeen rubles, and then I will give them to you.' And as the peasant sells his last sheep in the country, so here the poor student, the teacher, every poor man, deprives himself of necessaries in order to give me this money. ”

“ While many of them might hesitate or refuse, like Sonya Kovalevsky, to renounce a brilliant independent career already assured for the problematic happiness of married life, like her they desire to grasp the one without sacrificing the other. ”

“ He thinks that art and science should not be exempted from serving themselves and others, simply because they are such very beautiful things.
Tolstoi admits that telegraph, telephone, spectroscope, chloroform, and many other inventions and discoveries are wonderful, but he maintains that the condition of the majority - of the working people that is - has been rendered worse by them, since the railways, factories, and so on have only served to make poor men the slaves of capitalists. ”

“ A short personal investigation of city poverty convinced him that these wretched working classes could not be helped, because the very fact of their toil attached them to life more closely than he was himself attached, and because their chief misfortune lay in their being exactly the same as himself. For a long time, a false shame, and a liking for the self-satisfaction of feeling himself to be a benefactor, prevented his abandoning his attempts to render material aid. ”

“ Tolstoi declares that if he in any way differs from the average man, on this question of the misapplication of art and science, it is because he, more than the average man, has served and forwarded this false conception of science which is held by the world, has received more applause from the people who belong to the reigning scientific circle, and has therefore sinned more than others and wandered further from the true path. ”

“ Up to this point Aniuta, who knew only too well her father's prejudices, had conducted the affair clandestinely. But the letter with the money fell into her father's hands, and the scene which ensued was characteristic of Russian aristocratic ideas and manners. After awhile the father relented, and the family began to regard Aniuta as a genius; and when Mme. Krukovsky, with Aniuta and Sonya, went to St. Petersburg in the following winter, Aniuta carried with her the father's permission to make Dostoevsky's personal acquaintance, under the strictest surveillance of her mother. ”

“ He believes that the peasant himself is the best judge of what he should be taught, even though the latter does hold the Dogberrian theory that schools need not be permanent institutions, since, if the parents once learn, the following generations will inherit their wisdom. Count Tolstoi's personal experience in the peasant schools has shown him that Russian, Slavonic (the language of the church) , and mathematics, "and nothing else" should constitute the course of study in schools for the people, since these branches of learning are at the foundation of all others. ”

“ Tolstoi's argument on behalf of wearing one shirt a week, instead of paying a laundress to provide him with two clean ones each day, and of making his own cigarettes, is, that the money thus saved can be given to the laundress for less work, or to some superannuated working people. To this he suggests the retort, that "if one goes in dirty linen, and does not smoke, but gives the money to the poor, the latter will be deprived of the money all the same, and an individual drop in the sea will do not good." ”

“ But Sonya remained faithful and devoted to her, even to the detriment of her own interests, until Aniuta's death.
After winning many degrees and triumphs, Sonya was invited to go to Stockholm as privat-docent. She soon became professor at the university—the first woman admitted to that honor in Europe. The person who brought this about was Professor Mittag-Leffler. Sonya's intimate friend during her residence in Sweden was his sister, Anna Carlotta Leffler (Fru Edgren by her first marriage, the Duchessa di Cajanello by her second marriage to a mathematician of Naples) . ”

“ One day, as he was talking to his sympathizing sister, and to a peasant named Siutaeff, the latter gave him the first real gleam of light on the subject of true charity, and as to the reason why Tolstoi had been unsuccessful with his gifts of money. "True charity," said Siutaeff, "consists in teaching the poor. Take your proportion of the poor, work beside them in the fields, and they will learn; eat at the same table with them, and let them hear your words." At this point the censor intervenes, and cuts out over a thousand words containing reflections on this theme. ”

“ When, at last, she had found a man who entirely answered her requirements, she was radiantly happy until she discovered that he expected her to renounce her mathematical pursuits, merge her identity in his, and become simply his wife. ”

“ Thorough repentance, a just estimate of himself, a confession that he is ignorant and unlearned instead of cultured, harsh and immoral instead of kind and moral, lowly, instead of exalted, are what is required. "How am I, so fine a writer, a man who has acquired so much learning and talents, to use them for the benefit of the people?" ”

“ In another, a man who finds a heap of gold by the wayside, and devotes the whole of it to the founding of asylums for orphans and old people, and other works of charity, is rebuked by an angel of the Lord for having even touched the accursed thing. In still another, a poor peasant, who has with difficulty scraped together enough money to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the salvation of his soul, spends nearly the whole of it in restoring a starving family to prosperity, and is obliged to return home. ”

“ For him who is sincerely pained by the sufferings of those about him, there is the easiest, simplest, and most evident remedy, the only possible one for the alleviation of the evil which environs us, and for conferring on us a consciousness of the legitimacy of our life, the same which John the Baptist gave and which Christ confirmed, - to have but one garment and no money. ”

“ These causes are, the herding together of the poor in towns, the isolation of the rich from the poor, and the shame consequent on the consciousness of being wrongfully in possession of the money with which he tried to assist the poor; money, being in itself an evil thing, cannot be used as an instrument of good. The sum of the matter is contained in the words of John the Baptist: "Let him that hath two garments give to him that hath none, and let him that hath food do likewise." As Tolstoi puts it, it means "to give away everything superfluous, and never more take what is superfluous from men. ”

“ I know how to do nothing but eat, and talk, and listen, and write, and sleep. ... The only wonder is that I should ever have had so stupid a thought as helping people who are good for something," is his conclusion. "I have never done anything in my life. ”

“ But parents in the higher ranks of life would not allow their daughters to go abroad to the foreign universities to study, and the higher courses of instruction for women connected with the universities of St. ”

“ His chief objection to these latter lies in the fact that they are the outcome of the division of labor, and cannot exist on any other conditions than those of rendering many people slaves, for the production of the necessaries of life for those engaged in them. "Science has now become a distributor of premiums on idleness. ... With frightful struggles and conflicts men have freed themselves from many delusions. And now a new and still worse delusion has sprung up in their path, - the delusion of science. ”

“ The popular idea of the grades among the upper classes is thus defined: Culture signifies fashionable clothing, political conversation, and clean hands. In the circle next above, a knowledge of French, the ability to play the piano and to write a letter in Russian free from orthographical errors, and a "still greater degree of outward cleanliness" are the requisites. The next step in the social scale brings a knowledge of English, a diploma from one of the higher institutes of learning, and still greater personal cleanliness. ”