190, Marylebone Road,
April 12th, 1905.
About Tolstoi’s “Resurrection.”
To Mr. S. Cockerell.
At last I have finished your book. Thank you very much for lending it to me. Of course, one feels the nobility of the author’s aim, and some of the chapters are interesting as opening a view into life so utterly different from ours. A great advantage in a book I feel this to be. But, take it as a whole, I can’t say I feel the book either refreshing or helpful; and I am a little disappointed even with the art of it. There is growth in one or two characters, but all the rest are like a series of very minute photographs without clearness, or interest, or growth, no connection with the rest of the book, and no beauty. Also the theories seem to me not true nor practical. Wherefore I know I prove myself unworthy and dense; but I cannot help it. The short stories are some of them perfect, as works of art; and some have both meaning and beauty. Anyway, thank you for lending them. It is interesting to realise what men like Tolstoi are thinking, and to try to realise why many in England look up to him.
Larksfield,
July 16th, 1905.
To Mrs. Edmund Maurice.
I write to say how very glad I shall be if you decide to go with us on Wednesday.[[131]] Miss Yorke says we are to have a carriage reserved for us, and to be driven to the cottages, of which there are 120! So, in some ways, it won’t be so tiring as on an ordinary day, and we shall certainly see and hear more. How nice it would be to have the day with you!
I had a wonderful day yesterday. The L.C.C. opened the garden given by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners at Walworth. The whole place gay; a platform at one end was enclosed, but in front of us was the whole space crowded with people, the garden being open to all. In front and around were all new houses, with large bow-windows overlooking the garden, wider streets, the whole 22 acres either rebuilt or rebuilding.