5. To study History, Geography, and Statistics.
6. To study Mathematics (the High School course).
7. To write my [University] thesis.
8. To reach the highest perfection I can in music and painting.
9. To write down rules (for my conduct).
10. To acquire some knowledge of the natural sciences, and,
11. To write essays on all the subjects I study.
Such rules and resolutions abound in Tolstoy's Diary. After failing to act up to them, he again and again gathers his energies and maps out for himself plans of life and courses of study sufficient to tax the energies of an intellectual giant.
As to his religious opinions at this time, he tells us:
I was baptized and brought up in the Orthodox Christian faith. I was taught it in childhood and all through my boyhood and youth. But before I left the University, in my second year, at the age of eighteen, I no longer believed anything I had been taught. (Confession.)