Part 20

It is not, however, a matter of indifference to him whether people consider his views to be scientifically founded--_i. e._, correctly reasoned out or not. He said to me in the course of the conversation:

"I often laugh, and I also often grow angry, when people cast it in my face that my studies are not scientific. I assert in return that the whole of positivism and materialism is unscientific. If I seek a science by which I can _live_, I seek it only logically and steadfastly, or scientifically, with no contradiction within itself from its premises to its final conclusion. Scepticism, on the other hand, completely denies every concept of life. And yet the sceptic wishes to live, otherwise he would kill himself. He admits, therefore, by the mere fact that he is alive that his whole philosophy is nothing for him but an idle exercise of the intellect which has no bearing on his life. That means that it is not in the least _true_ for him. I, however, seek the premise from which I can not only live, but live peacefully and cheerfully. This premise is God, and the duty for us that of perfecting ourselves. I follow the consequence of that premise to the end, and feel that I am right not only in words but also in deeds."

No truly scientific thinker needs to be reminded that Tolstoï here, in the _a priori_ assumption that life must have a meaning, departs from the fundamental principle of all scientific reasoning--namely, the starting without a hypothesis, and, like Kant, to whom he feels drawn not without reason, works with postulates instead of with conclusions. But who will not rejoice that the poet, who above all things was and is a passionate human creature, has saved himself from the despair of agnosticism by a bold leap to the rock of faith, which lies beyond all science, and can neither be supported nor shaken by it? How many of the proud agnostics do not secretly cast furtive glances at that rock, where they would like to reserve themselves a place against emergencies? While Tolstoï sincerely acknowledges that without this foundation under his feet he would no longer be able to live. He needed this quieting as to the outcome of things to be able to follow his poetic impulse to look at the world as it is. Only entirely barren, abstract natures find their satisfaction in the voluntarily limited logical sequence of science, confined as it is to the empirical. All men of imagination, including Goethe and Bismarck, have had their share of mystic confidence in that beneficent course of the universe which in popular language is called God or Providence. This poetic faith has, of course, nothing whatever to do with science.

Undervaluation of one's own qualities, however, and enthusiasm for the complementary ones, is a familiar psychological fact. The poet Tolstoï wishes to be a cut-and-dried philosopher. He repudiates his poetry, and likewise speaks coldly--indeed, even with hostility--of the spirits akin to him, of Goethe and Shakespeare. There is only one opinion among lovers of art, and that is that Tolstoï, in the natural spontaneity of his characters and incidents, is to be compared with these two alone, and in the abundance of his psychological traits with Shakespeare only. Yet at present Tolstoï is engaged in writing a book, soon to appear, against Shakespeare and the study of Shakespeare. In our conversation he came back to the indefensible over-estimation of this artist.

"If people were capable of approaching Shakespeare impartially they would lose their unreasonable reverence for this writer. He is crude, immoral, a toady to the great, an arrogant despiser of the small, a slanderer of the common people. He lacks good taste in his jests, is unjust in his sympathies, ignoble, intoxicated with the acquaintance with which a few aristocrats honored him. Even his art is over-estimated, for in every case the best comes from his predecessors or his sources. But people are quite blind. They are under the spell of the consensus of opinion handed down for centuries. It is truly incredible what ideas can be awakened in the human mind by consecutive treatments of one and the same theme."

I believe that one will not go astray in finding in the above-mentioned book against Shakespeare a prosecution at the same time of Tolstoï's campaign against the æsthetic-artistic view of life in general. His purpose is to overthrow one of the chief idols of the æsthetic cult. As far as the arguments on the moral side are concerned, he will certainly have a following. The son of a tavern-keeper, himself an actor, Shakespeare was certainly not the ideal of a gentleman. Tolstoï will, however, have difficulty in abolishing wonder at the artistic power of this most sumptuous of all geniuses.

Tolstoï dealt with the influence of general opinion again in another connection. He was speaking of the mischief that the newspapers do in the world, but chose, in my opinion, a very inappropriate example of this.

"During the Dreyfus case," said he, "I received at least a thousand letters from all parts of the world asking me to express an opinion. How could I have responded? Here I am in Russia; the transaction was in France. It was absolutely impossible to get a correct idea of the proceedings, for every paper reported it differently. In and of itself, what was the thing that had happened? An innocent officer had been condemned. That was an unimportant occurrence. There were much greater crimes committed by those in power. But the whole world took the alarm. Everybody had an incontrovertible conviction as to the guilt or the innocence of a man whom nobody knew, and whose judges nobody knew. A thing like that is an epidemic, not thinking."

One must certainly travel a very strange and lonely road to fail to appreciate that in this very instance the press accomplished an enormous work in arousing mankind, and in showing them the danger threatening from the Jesuits. The Dreyfus affair belongs to world-history as an epoch-making event. Perhaps the deliverance of the whole white race from the octopus-like embrace of clericalism and militarism is its work. And Count Tolstoï, who regards it as his mission to fight militarism, lives through the chief battle and does not suspect it! One certainly ought not to forget that he is in Russia, where the incarceration of innocent men is an every-day affair, and that the Russian papers think they fulfil their duty to an allied nation by treating the matter from the stand-point of Méline and Marcier.

Tolstoï's antipathy to this affair does not come at all from any possible anti-Semitic feeling. He does not love the mercantile Jews, who have not the slightest trace of Christian spirit. He condemns anti-Semitism, however, in the most emphatic way. "Anti-Semitism," he said, "is not a misfortune for the Jews, for he who suffers wrong is not to be pitied, but he who does wrong. Anti-Semitism demoralizes society. It is the worst evil of our time, for it poisons whole generations. It makes them blind to right and wrong, and kills all moral feeling. It changes the soul into a place of desolation in which all goodness and nobility are swept away."

In regard to other matters, Tolstoï does not use strong expressions. He parries them good-humoredly but decisively. When we were talking of the new romanticists, I used some severe language. I explained the uproarious applause of certain gifted but degenerate and perverse artists as a cynical attack on the inborn moral sense, and said, speaking from my own experience, that I had yet to meet one of those devotees of immorality whom I had not found on closer acquaintance to be morally deficient. When, however, I spoke of literary support of vice, the count raised his hand to stop me, and said:

"Let us be gentle in our judgment of our fellow-men." Then he added, "Go on."

I had, however, gained command of myself and begged pardon for my vehemence. I could not go on, however, for what had been on my tongue was only more bitter words.

He looked at me kindly, and merely said, "Thank you."

It is self-evident that Tolstoï did not mean by this to express sympathy with the Diabolics and other eccentrics. Moreover, he spoke flatly against art for art's sake, which he calls tiresome more than anything else. "Agonized productions of the search for originality, welcomed by idleness, and intended for the applause of the critics of so-called fine taste." He shrugged his shoulders over the fact that a monument had been erected to Baudelaire. He agreed with me, however, when I traced the interest in exotic suggestion in the creative arts, as for everything eccentric and bizarre, back to the tendency towards an entirely external naturalism, which would completely rule out from art the personality of the artist. He returned again to his text.

"Without the deepest sympathy and complete identification with the subject no work of art can ever be produced."

He does not admit, however, that this identification with the subject is found in the experiments of these latter-day writers. He sees in them only a sudden change from the fashion for objectivity to the fashion for subjectivity. When, however, I spoke of the good-fortune of the Russian in not being obliged to take part in all these fashions, because he had already showed in his deep-hearted realism that it is possible to be true to reality, and yet be full of warmth and meaning, he again raised his hand to stop me, and blushed. I could not tell whether it was from modesty or whether he does not wish any longer to hear of the works of his "literary" period. I believe, however, that the noise of all this no longer reaches his ear. When I spoke with warm enthusiasm of the debt we all owe him, said that his art was a revelation to us, that through him we had first learned what poetic power lies in the simplest and deepest fidelity to nature, he stopped me in his gentle way. Only philanthropy is now a matter of any importance for him. Everything else is empty trifling. He said to me:

"You are still buried deep in materialism. You must see that you free yourself from that."

Nevertheless, he was good enough to recognize my honest purpose of seeking the truth, even though I do not succeed in finding it in all points as he believes he has found it.

I must certainly admit that in the late hours of the night, as he sat opposite me, his fine head leaning far back and resting on one hand, his glowing eyes making him seem as it were transparent, I had great difficulty in preserving a conventional bearing. Here was one of the greatest men of all times, who had risen out of the purely human and had become a saint upon whom rests the divine light. The kindness and tenderness of his voice and the gentleness of his words are indescribable. He has the love and the dauntless courage of the prophet and the apostle without their passion and wrath. It is doubtful whether any mortal has ever had more understanding of human weakness than he. He combats only institutions, never men. And yet no other man has had such influence upon our consciences as he, most compassionate of all judges in spite of the pitiless keenness of his vision.

It was midnight when the count's sleigh took us to Kozlovka, the nearest station to the estate. In leaving I could not conceal the extent to which I was moved. When I think of the final moments, when the count stood at the head of the stairs and called a last word after me, while I turned to him to say good-bye once more and forever, it seems to me that I never in my life experienced anything more overwhelming. I carried away an impression that the whole hall was filled with the light of his eyes. Yet it was only a prosaic bit of advice for our return trip to Moscow, to give which he had hurried after us after the adieus in his study. The Countess Sasha, however, stood in the starlight by the door, lovely as a goddess of hospitality. It was gratifying to know that the saintly old man was in the care of this lovely creature.

Under the twinkling stars we sped at a brisk trot past black forests and over the silent, deep-buried fields. Within us re-echoed the saying of Kant, "Two things there are that always fill me with reverent awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral consciousness within." The man whose hand I had just grasped embodies the moral consciousness of our century.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] "Why do I seek the way so ardently, if not that I might show it to my brothers?"

THE END