Those who labor have a right to live. They have a right to what they earn. He who works has a right to home and fireside and to the comforts of life. Those who waste the spring, the summer, and the autumn of their lives must bear the winter when it comes. Many of our institutions are absurdly unjust. Giving the land to the few, making tenants of the many, is the worst possible form of socialism—of paternal government. In most of the nations of our day the idlers and non-producers are either beggars or aristocrats, paupers or princes, and the great middle laboring class support them both. Rags and robes have a liking for each other. Beggars and kings are in accord; they are all parasites, living on the same blood, stealing the same labor—one by beggary, the other by force. And yet in all this there can be found no reason for denouncing the man who has accumulated. One who wishes to tear down his bams and build greater has laid aside something to keep the wolf of want from the door of home when he is dead.
Even the beggars see the necessity of others working, and the nobility see the same necessity with equal clearness. But it is hardly reasonable to say that all should do the same kind of work, for the reason that all have not the same aptitudes, the same talents. Some can plough, others can paint; some can reap and mow, while others can invent the instruments that save labor; some navigate the seas; some work in mines; while others compose music that elevates and refines the heart of the world.
But the worst thing in "The Kreutzer Sonata" is the declaration that a husband can by force compel the wife to love and obey him. Love is not the child of fear; it is not the result of force. No one can love on compulsion. Even Jehovah found that it was impossible to compel the Jews to love him. He issued his command to that effect, coupled with threats of pain and death, but his chosen people failed to respond.
Love is the perfume of the heart; it is not subject to the will of husbands or kings or God.
Count Tolstoï would establish slavery in every house; he would make every husband a tyrant and every wife a trembling serf. No wonder that he regards such marriage as a failure. He is in exact harmony with the curse of Jehovah when he said unto the woman: "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
This is the destruction of the family, the pollution of home, the crucifixion of love.
Those who are truly married are neither masters nor servants. The idea of obedience is lost in the desire for the happiness of each. Love is not a convict, to be detained with bolts and chains. Love is the highest expression of liberty. Love neither commands nor obeys.
The curious thing is that the orthodox world insists that all men and women should obey the injunctions of Christ; that they should take him as the supreme example, and in all things follow his teachings. This is preached from countless pulpits, and has been for many centuries. And yet the man who does follow the Savior, who insists that he will not resist evil, who sells what he has and gives to the poor, who deserts his wife and children for the love of God, is regarded as insane.
Tolstoï, on most subjects, appears to be in accord with the founder of Christianity, with the apostles, with the writers of the New Testament, and with the Fathers of the church; and yet a Christian teacher of a Sabbath school decides, in the capacity of Postmaster-General, that "The Kreutzer Sonata" is unfit to be carried in the mails.
Although I disagree with nearly every sentence in this book, regard the story as brutal and absurd, the view of life presented as cruel, vile, and false, yet I recognize the right of Count Tolstoï to express his opinions on all subjects, and the right of the men and women of America to read for themselves.