At six o\'clock we were summoned to dinner, at which the count appeared. As entrée there were baked fish—for the count, rice cutlets—then a roast and vegetables, of which the count took only the latter; then dessert and black coffee. We drank kvass, later tea, with cakes. Everything was very well prepared. A man-servant waited at table. It is by no means petty to tell all this. The Tolsto?s do not live on locusts and wild honey, but like other good families in Russia. We have, thank Heaven, outgrown the days when genius had to assert itself by extravagant conduct. Brilliant originality is entirely compatible with conformity to custom in all every-day usages, according to our way of thinking. Conversely, all originality immediately becomes suspicious in our eyes when it labors to assert itself in trifles. "A wise man behaves like other people." The individuality of Tolsto? shows in no way the stamp of the idle wish to differentiate itself in each and every particular from other people.

No one will expect me to reproduce every detail[Pg 311] of the conversation, which began at dinner and ended almost six hours later at the house door. I certainly have not forgotten a word of it, but I cannot answer for the order of succession of subjects, nor even for every expression and every turn of speech. I therefore reconstruct from memory only what seems to me the most important, and ask every indulgence for this report. It is as faithful as is possible to human inadequacy after such fatigues and excitements, and with rather tardy notes.

"I am now under the influence of two Germans," began the count. "I am reading Kant and Lichtenberg—selections, to be sure, for I do not possess an original edition. I am fascinated by the clearness and grace of their style, and in particular by Lichtenberg\'s keen wit."

"Goethe says, \'When Lichtenberg makes a jest, a whole system is hidden behind it,\'" I threw in.

"I do not understand how the Germans of to-day can so neglect their writer and go so mad over a coquettish feuilletonist like Nietzsche. He is no philosopher, and has no honest purpose of seeking and speaking the truth."

"But he has an unprecedented polish of style, and an endless amount of temperament."

"Schopenhauer seems to me greater as a stylist. Still, I agree with you that he has a glittering polish, though it is only the facile grace of the feuilletonist, which does not entitle him to a place among the great thinkers and teachers of humanity."

[Pg 312]

"He flatters, however, the aristocratic instincts of the new-Germans, who have attained power and honor, and he works against the evils of socialism."

"What is the condition of socialism in Germany?" asked the count, immediately, with great interest.

"I fear it has lost in depth and strength what it has gained in breadth."

"You may be right," he answered. "I have the same impression. The belief in its invincibility is broken, and its internal strength of conviction begins to weaken. It had to be so. Socialism cannot free humanity. No system and no doctrine can do that—nothing but religion."

"The Church says that, too."

"But she teaches it falsely. What is religion? The striving of each individual soul towards perfection; the subordination to an ideal. As long as a man has that he feels a purpose in life, can endure all sufferings, and is capable of any strain. It does not need necessarily to be a lofty ideal. A man may have an ambition to develop his biceps to an uncommon degree. If he takes this as his particular purpose in life this aim carries him along completely. To be sure, a man\'s choice of an ideal can be only apparently capricious. In reality we are all products of our environment; and after nineteen hundred years of Christianity we cannot with any true conviction set up ideals which contradict the real Christianity. We can make ourselves believe something else for a while. But the [Pg 313]conscience will not submit to be silenced. Peace is attained only by the religious ideal of perfection and of love of humanity. Nothing is deadly except cynicism and nihilism."

"I remember your metaphor, comparing a society without religion or moral enthusiasm to an orchestra that has lost its leader. It keeps in time for a while, then come the discords."

"We are now in the first measure after his departure. All will go well for a while, but then every one will get out of time; the leaders first, because they are most exposed to temptation; then, class by class, the lower ones also."

"I believe a state is like a magnet, in which every smallest particle must have its direction, or else the whole loses its strength and cohesion."

"Exactly. A state or a society, like the individual, is fit for life only so long as it feels as a whole a reason for being. This life principle of totality is, however, identical with the idea of the individual. It is the stream that encircles each particle and brings it into polarity."

"People try to reach it by the ideal of nationalism and patriotism."

"That is no ideal. It is an absurd idea, which immediately comes into irreconcilable conflict with our better feelings. An ideal that can and does require me to kill my neighbor in order to gain an advantage for the group to which I belong is criminal."

[Pg 314]

"Yet it is dangerous to stand out against it. You had a controversy on that point with Spielhagen, who cast it up to you that you incline people to fling themselves under the wheels of a flying express-train."

"I remember. But Spielhagen does not know how many people already comply with the requirements of the gospel. The Doukhobors are such people."

"But they were obliged to leave the country."

"What difference does that make? They were able to remain true to themselves. That is better than remaining at home. And when we have once changed education, and have taken the sinful glorification of deeds of murder out of the hands of our children, then there will be not merely thousands, but millions, who will refuse to sacrifice themselves, or have themselves murdered for the ambition or the material advantage of a few individuals. And then this chapter of world-history will end."

"But the school is a matter of politics, and the state or the influential classes will be careful not to permit an education that will make their lower classes unavailable for purposes of war."

"Certainly. And as long as there is a church which by its fundamental teaching delivers itself over as an assistant to the state, and which blesses weapons of murder, so long will it be hard to fight against the evil instincts thus aroused. But school, of course, does not end man\'s education. Later[Pg 315] reading is much more important. We have, therefore, created something that might well be imitated abroad also, our \'Posrednik,\' books for the people. The thing that suppresses bad reading among the people is good books, especially stories. The books are sold very cheaply. Our artists design frontispieces for them. You must look at them in Moscow. I will give you a letter to the publisher, my friend Ivan Ivanovitch Gorbunov, who can tell you the details."

He did so. With his kind letter I afterwards looked up Gorbunov in Moscow. Under the pressure of the Russian censorship he accomplishes the immense work of spreading among the people every year several million good books at a cost of a few kopeks each, without having needed to add to his original capital of thirty thousand rubles. I fulfil a duty, and at the same time a wish of Tolsto?\'s, in here calling attention most emphatically to this magnificent Russian enterprise, which should be an example for all other nations.

I took up the subject of socialism again, and said, "In the West, Social Democracy is trying to solve the problem of educating the masses and to emancipate them."

"This is certainly meritorious," replied the count. "The mistake lies in the teaching of the Social Democrats that some other organization of society will automatically abolish evil from the world. The principal thing, however, is always to raise the [Pg 316]individual to better morals and better ways of thinking. Without this no system can be permanent. Each leads only to new violence. People ought not to wish to better the world, but to better themselves."

"In that you agree essentially with our Moderns, who likewise take a stand against socialism and preach an extreme individualism. I see in that only a reactionary man?uvre, however."

"How so?" asked the count.

"I believe that all wars for culture are always fought in a small class of thinking people. For the masses, provision for material needs is really the principal thing. In the thinking class, however, there are two parties: one, consisting of the feudalists, the plutocrats, and university-bred business men, fortune-hunters, seeks for itself the privilege of exploiting others; the other consists of the idealists, who desire progress—that is, the education and freeing of the masses. Sometimes the one class, with its aristocratic philosophy of profit, wins the upper hand, sometimes the other. We do not yet know in what Hellenic or Sidonian laws the spiritual ebb and flow will find its consummation. It is certain, however, that each party uses as a means of attraction the declaration that its point of view is the more progressive and that the opposite is the losing side. The individualists, in their scorn of socialism, render the most valuable service towards fundamental and complete reaction to the [Pg 317]aristocratic-plutocratic party of exploitation, because they spread confusion in the ranks of the idealists by discrediting their solidarity. Nevertheless, they call themselves "the Moderns," and dub the advocates of solidarity \'old fogies.\' The most modern thing in the West is a vile cult of the Uebermensch (over-man) Renaissance sentimentalism and the cult of beauty in bearing—?sthetic snobism."

"All that originates with Nietzsche. The mistake, however, does not lie in the principle of individualism, which does not exclude solidarity, but, on the contrary, advances it. For the individual unquestionably attains solidarity in the very struggle towards his own perfection. The mistake lies in the ?stheticism, in the basing of life on externals and on enjoyment. Connected with this is the strangest thing of all, that this resurrection of the madness of the Renaissance has not made use of art. For all that is produced is nothing but pure silliness. I have not laughed so much for years as at an entirely serious account of the contents of Mona Vanna, or at the poems which our ?sthete and decadent Balmont read to me. None of those things are to be taken seriously as art. They will only confuse people through their absurdity, which could not exist if the healthy human understanding had not been brought into discredit. It is no better with you in Germany. Why is your literary product so low?"

[Pg 318]

"Who knows, count? It has already been asserted that since 1870 the gifted minds have turned to more serious and more lucrative callings than literature. But I do not believe it. The sciences show at present just as few geniuses as the arts. It seems as if there were laws of ebb and flow here, too. Sometimes a whole billow of inspired intellects is flung upon the earth, and then there is long drought. We have had no great writers since Gottfried Keller."

"Gottfried Keller? I have never heard the name before. Who was he? What did he write?"

"He was a Swiss who inherited Goethe\'s free outlook on life, and wrote the best German novels, full of creative art, of racy humor, and of almost uncanny knowledge of human nature. He would give you much pleasure."

"How? You say he inherits to some degree from Goethe. In that case my enthusiasm would be doubtful, for I cannot say I especially love that Goethe of yours."

"Is it possible?"

"There are some of his works I admire without reserve, which stand among the finest things that have ever been written: Hermann and Dorothea, for instance. I once knew his dedication by heart. Yet the lyrics of Heine, for instance, make a deeper impression upon me than Goethe\'s."

"Pardon the remark, count, but in that case your knowledge of the German language is not [Pg 319]sufficient for you to notice the difference in quality. Heine is a virtuoso, who plays with form. With Goethe, every word breathes the deepest spiritual experience and is uttered from inward necessity."

"The same thing is said here of Pushkin—that his greatness can be appreciated only by those who are most deeply imbued with the spirit of the language. I haven\'t any too much faith in all that, however. To be sure, a translation is only the wrong side of the carpet; yet I believe really great works hold their own in translation, so the form of phrase cannot be the only test for the value of a writing. But what repels me in Goethe is precisely that play on form of which you accuse Heine. Goethe and Shakespeare are both artists in the sense in which you reproach the Moderns. They are bent only upon ?sthetic play, and create only for enjoyment, and not with the heart\'s blood."

"I could not admit that, count, without repudiating everything I have ever thought and felt. Not for Shakespeare, in whom, through all the dramatic conventions of the greater part, we hear the heartbeat often enough. As for Goethe, whose poems are partly painful confessions, written only for the reason he himself gives,
"Warum sucht\' ich den Weg so sehnsuchtsvoll
Wenn ich ihn nicht den Brüdern zeigen soll?"[15]

[Pg 320]

"I find much more of this feeling for humanity in Schiller."

"He is more rhetorical, appeals more directly to the middle class and contemporaries. But, like the overbearing political tribune he was, he has hardly entered into the joy and sorrow of the human soul."

"And it is exactly this that brings him nearer to me than Goethe and Shakespeare. He is filled with a sacred sense of purpose in his work. He had not the cold ambition of the artist to be merely faithful to his model. He was full of longing that we should be carried away with him. Of the three requirements I make of the great artist—technical perfection, worthiness of subject, and self-identification with the matter—the last is the most important. One may be a great writer even when technical perfection, complete mastery of the tricks of the trade, is lacking, as, for instance, in the case of Dostoyevski. But unless a man writes with his heart\'s blood he cannot be a great artist."

"I believe the heart\'s-blood do............