On Tolstoi, Prophet and Teacher

Abstract

It is difficult to decide what is of the greatest Importance in all the vast mass of diaries, reminiscences, biographies, and other books about Tolstoi—the fantastic drama of his life, his extraordinary character, the effect of this character upon his magnificent art, or the projection of his prodigious mind on his philosophy and belief. The fact that Tolstoi himself was a living contradiction of the separateness of experiences and ideas is a sufficient reason for not attempting to isolate any one of them from all the rest. But, whether because his understanding of himself fell short of that of other human beings or because he was forced by the very power of his understanding to turn about and attend to his other task—that of understanding how to live with himself and with his fellow men—Tolstoi chose to divide his life into independent periods. The fourth and last one, in which, he said, he “hoped to die,” enlarged (or, as some would have it, narrowed) his understanding until it became prophecy, or religion, or a huge moral ax which he leveled against himself and the surrounding world.