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242

TOLSTOY

But what a difference between the two minds, and how much more purely Christian is Tolstoy's! What a lack of humility, what Pharisee-like arrogance, in this insolent cry from the Confessions of the Genevese:

"Eternal Being! Let a single man tell me, if he dare: I was better than that man!"

Or in this defiance of the world:

"I say it loudly and fearlessly: whosoever could believe me a dishonest man is himself a man to be suppressed."

Tolstoy wept tears of blood over the "crimes" of his past life:

"I suffer the pangs of hell. I recall all my past baseness, and these memories do not leave me; they poison my life. Usually men regret that they cannot remember after death. What happiness if

↑ words: 'Thy Will be done!'" (Troisième lettre de la Montague.)

Compare with:

"I am replacing all my prayers with the Pater Noster. All the requests I can make of God are expressed with greater moral elevation by these words: 'Thy Will be done!'" (Tolstoy's Journal, in the Caucasus, 1852–3.)

The similarity of thought is no less striking in the province of art:

"The first rule of the art of writing," said Rousseau, "is to speak plainly and to express one's thought exactly."

And Tolstoy:

"Think what you will, but in such a manner that every word may be understood by all. One cannot write anything bad in perfectly plain language."

I have demonstrated elsewhere that the satirical descriptions of the Paris Opera in the Nouvelle Héloise have much in common with Tolstoy's criticisms in What is Art?

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[1] words: 'Thy Will be done!'" (Troisième lettre de la Montague.)

Compare with:

"I am replacing all my prayers with the Pater Noster. All the requests I can make of God are expressed with greater moral elevation by these words: 'Thy Will be done!'" (Tolstoy's Journal, in the Caucasus, 1852–3.)

The similarity of thought is no less striking in the province of art:

"The first rule of the art of writing," said Rousseau, "is to speak plainly and to express one's thought exactly."

And Tolstoy:

"Think what you will, but in such a manner that every word may be understood by all. One cannot write anything bad in perfectly plain language."

I have demonstrated elsewhere that the satirical descriptions of the Paris Opera in the Nouvelle Héloise have much in common with Tolstoy's criticisms in What is Art?

[1]