NOTE Most of the essays here collected have appeared before in various magazines, and when first published were sent to Count Leo Tolstoy, who on different occasions wrote expressing his approval of them. Of the first essay in this book, he wrote.: "I very much approve of it. It is admirably constructed, and what is most important is given." Of An Introduction to WHAT IS ART? he wrote :— "I have read your Introduction with great pleasure. You have admirably and strongly expressed the fundamental thought of the book." clearly and strongly is the fundamental thought expressed." Of The Tsar's Coronation (when published in 1896 as Epilogue to a small book), he wrote: "The Epilogue to Maude's book is excellent firm and radical, going to the last conclusions." PREFACE IT is still difficult for English readers to discover Tolstoy's opinions, or, at any rate, to understand clearly how his views on different subjects fit together. Some of his works have never been translated; others have been translated from sense into nonsense. Even in Russian some of his most important philosophic works are still only obtainable in the badly edited Geneva edition, which is full of mistakes. Besides these external difficulties there are difficulties inherent in the subjects he discusses, nor is it always easy for the reader to understand from which side Tolstoy approaches his subject, and to make due allowance for the 'personal equation.' So that most readers, however openminded and willing to understand, on reading books that contain so much that runs counter both to the established beliefs of our day and to the hopes of our various 'advanced' groups, must have felt, as I did, a desire to cross-examine Tolstoy personally. Being the only Englishman who, in recent years, has had the advantage of intimate personal intercourse, continued over a period of some years, with Tolstoy, I hardly need an excuse for trying to share with others some of the results he helped me to reach. Each essay in this volume expresses, in one form or other, Tolstoy's view of life; and the main object of the book is not to praise his views but to explain them. His positions, not being final revelations of the truth attainable by man, may and should be subjected to criticism, and to re-examina |