Tolstoy's Diaries, Volume 2 by R. F. Christian

Author:R. F. Christian [R. F. Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571324064
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2013-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

2 March, Yasnaya Polyana Haven’t written my diary for twelve days. I’ve felt both good and bad physically; more often bad. I’m just about surviving. I’m working on myself inwardly and, I think, well. The trouble is, and it’s a good thing too, that just as when you fly in a balloon you don’t feel either the wind or the movement because you move with the wind, so you don’t feel your improvement because it is only what ought to happen, what is actually happening. You only feel the wind when you come to a stop, i.e. when you live badly. […] During this time I’ve been revising What For? and have also sent off the proofs of the second volume of the Cycle of Reading to be set up. There is much to note down, I think, and it isn’t bad. […]

(4) We are so used to seeing people of our circle engaged in politics, i.e. concerning themselves with how to improve the organisation of people’s social life and putting all their efforts into this activity, that we are not surprised at this phenomenon. And yet it is very surprising.

People who are completely negligent about carrying out their economic, family and personal affairs, put all their energy into the future imaginary organisation of society and, in spite of the differences between all the parties, stubbornly defend their own position. There is only one explanation: a person needs activity, and the assurance that his activity is useful. He makes a mess of his personal, economic or family affairs, and not only lacks the assurance of behaving reasonably, but quite the contrary. And so he chooses an activity where the results are not visible, and he can comfort himself with the assurance that he is doing a useful and necessary thing. Confirmation of this is the fact that the more tormented a person’s private life is, the more energetically he devotes himself to politics. […]

(8) What I once wrote long ago to Khilkov almost as a joke, as a piece of fantasy, namely that our life is a dream about the sleep into which we were plunged in a former life, and that death will be an awakening to a new form of life – this idea no longer seems to me a piece of fantasy, but a great probabilty. Our dreams in this life are echoes of life as a whole, pointers to its laws. […]

(14) Philosophical systems are badly constructed arches, smeared over with lime so that their flimsiness should not be visible. An arch made of unpolished stone, if it holds, will most likely last. But the arch which lasts the longest is the one built unconsciously, like natural caves. […]

5 March, Yasnaya Polyana I’m writing in the morning. These last days I’ve written nothing of substance, except letters, and they are worthless. Busy with the Cycle of Reading for children,7 i.e. an exposition of scripture. It’s going badly. I haven’t taken it seriously enough.

9 March. In a bad state.

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