It is said that Turgenev in his Faust described Marie Nikolaevna.
The conversation turned on Dostoevsky’s hatred of Turgenev. Tolstoi greatly blamed the libel on Turgenev in The Possessed. This hatred always surprised Tolstoi, and so did that between Goncharov and Turgenev.
Tolstoi went on to say:
“Now books are written by people who have nothing to say. You read, but you do not see the writer. They always try to give ‘the last word.’ They reject the real writers and say that they have become obsolete. It is an absurd notion—to become obsolete. Modern books are read just because one can get to know ‘the last word’ from them; and this is easier than to read and know the real writers. These purveyors of ‘the last word’ do enormous harm, they make people unused to thinking independently.”
Some one mentioned Kant, and Tolstoi said:
“What is particularly valuable in Kant is that he always thought for himself. In reading him you deal all the time with his thoughts, and this is extraordinarily valuable.”
About reading modern literature Tolstoi said:
“I am much more ready to read the memoirs of some old General in the Russkaia Starina; he romances a little, like Zavalishin, about his merits and successes, but this can be excused, and there is always something of interest in it.”
Tolstoi said further:
“Brain work often tires the head, and when tired, you can’t work as fruitfully as with a fresh head. Generally speaking, in brain work the moment is very important. There are moments when your thoughts come out as if moulded in bronze; at other moments nothing happens.”