Category: Biographies

Talks with Tolstoi

In the following pages we have made a selection from vol. i. of the diary of the well-known Russian musician, A. B. Goldenveizer, which was published at the end of 1922 in Moscow under the title _Vblizi Tolstovo_ (literally _Near Tolstoi_).

Chapters

8. Part 8

“There was her daughter, Princess Volkonsky, there. They all wanted to direct me on the path of truth. I tried to speak with all seriousness; but hardly anything could penetrate...

5. Part 5

“Of the life to come, although of course the words ‘to come’ are inappropriate here, of life beyond our physical being, it is impossible to have knowledge. We can imagine two fo...

6. Part 6

“I made Volkonsky’s acquaintance in Florence at Dolgorukov’s, Koko Dolgorukov, the doctor. At that time it was rare for an aristocrat to become a doctor. It was when Nicolas I....

1. Part 1

In the following pages we have made a selection from vol. i. of the diary of the well-known Russian musician, A. B. Goldenveizer, which was published at the end of 1922 in Mosco...

2. Part 2

“Woman, as a Christian, has a right to equality. Woman, as member of the modern and perfectly pagan family, must not struggle for an impossible equality. The modern family is li...

3. Part 3

“I am trying to like and appreciate the modern writers, but it is so difficult. Dostoevsky often wrote so badly, so weakly and incompetently, from the point of view of technique...

7. Part 7

About that time, in January, Tolstoi said that he should like to write a whole series of stories for his “Reading Circle” which he is now planning, and that he had already many...

4. Part 4

“Alexander Borisovich, an image comes before me. Rays spread out from a centre. The centre is the spiritual essence; the rays are the perpetually growing needs of the body. A ti...

9. Part 9

_September 3rd._ Tolstoi again spoke about the old German mystic, Angelus Silesius. Tolstoi asked some one to fetch his book (a large old volume) and read aloud several aphorism...