Tolstoi said:
“I always consider that moral motives are effective and decisive historically. And now, when the universal dislike of the English is so clearly pronounced—I shall not live to see it, but it seems to me that the power of England will be much shaken. And I say this not out of an unconscious Russian patriotism. If Poland or Finland rose against Russia and success were on their side, my sympathy would be on their side as the oppressed.
“The Russian people, speaking impartially, is perhaps the most Christian of all in its moral character. It is partly to be explained by the fact that the Gospels have been read by the Russian people for nine hundred years; Catholics don’t know the Gospels even now, and other races came to know the Gospel only after the Reformation.
“I was struck when I saw in the streets of London a criminal escorted by the police, and the police had to protect him energetically from the crowd, which threatened to tear him to pieces. With us it is just the opposite: police have to drive away by force the people who try to give the criminal money and bread. With us, criminals and prisoners are ‘little unhappy ones.’ But now, unfortunately, there is a change for the worse, and our abominable Government tries with all its might and main to rouse hatred against the condemned. In Siberia, even prizes are given to any one who kills an escaped prisoner.”
April 29th. The conversation was on Shakespeare. Tolstoi is not very fond of him. Tolstoi said:
“Three times in my life I have read through Shakespeare and Goethe from end to end, and I could never make out in what their charm consisted.”
According to Tolstoi, Goethe is cold. Among his (Goethe’s) works he likes many of the lyrics and Hermann and Dorothea. He does not like Goethe’s dramatic works, and his novels he considers quite weak. Tolstoi did not speak about Faust.
Tolstoi is very fond of Schiller, and said: “He is a genuine man!” He loves almost all his works, particularly The Robbers and Don Carlos, also Mary Stuart, William Tell, and Wallenstein.
Then A. M. Sukhotin, a man over seventy, read aloud Turgenev’s Old Portraits superbly. Tolstoi did not remember the story, and was in great delight over it. He said: