After being captivated by Anna Karenina I became interested in Tolstoy himself; he seems to “get it”. A diary is much more useful and interesting to me than a biography.
Tolstoy’s reasons for keeping a diary:
(June 14, 1850, age 21) There are lots of thoughts in one’s head, and some of them seem very remarkable, but when you examine them they turn out to be nonsense; others on the other hand seem sensible – and that’s what a diary is needed for. On the basis of one’s diary it’s very convenient to judge oneself.
I like this later description of what he’s doing:
(April 17, 1851) There’s no better way of finding out whether you are making progress in anything than by testing yourself on your former way of doing things. To find out whether you have grown or not you need to measure yourself against an old mark.
Tolstoy also sees his diary as a kind of accountability system. Unfortunately this quickly falls apart; usually when he sets an intention in his diary he quickly relapses or fails within a few days.
(June 14, 1850) I’d like to get used to determining my way of life in advance, not just for a day but for a year, for several years, or even for life; it’s too difficult, almost impossible. But I’ll try; first for a day, then for two days – for as many days as I remain true to my resolutions, for that many days I shall plan ahead. By these resolutions I mean not moral rules independent of time and place, rules which never change and which I draw up specially, but resolutions which are temporal and local: where to live and for how long, what to study and when.
It falls apart in his next entry, and we also get an introduction to the recurring theme of his sex addiction (I’ll compile these quotes in part 2):
(June 17, 1850) This is the second day I’ve been idle, and haven’t carried out what I intended. Why? I don’t understand it. However, I don’t despair; I’ll force myself. Yesterday, apart from not carrying out what I had intended, I also broke my own rule. But now I won’t break my rule again of not having a woman in the country, except on certain occasions which I won’t look for, but won’t let pass either.
I like Tolstoys turns of self-loathing. He usually keeps them concise:
(December 19, 1850) I’m living a completely brutish life; although not completely dissolute, I’ve abandoned nearly all my occupations and am in very low spirits.
(January 17, 1851) Since the 14th I’ve behaved unsatisfactorily. Didn’t go to the Stolypins’ ball; lent some money and so am left without a bean; and all because of my weakness of character.
Tolstoy begins a phase where he catalogues his weaknesses, supposedly inspired by Benjamin Franklin:
(March 10, 1851) Left my fur coat behind (haste and carelessness). Cowardice at the Council. Vanity at gymnastics. Overconfidence and affectation at Lvov’s. Didn’t copy out any extracts – laziness. I’m writing my journal hastily and imprecisely.
(March 23, 1851) Got up at 8.30. Read and wrote; didn’t revise what I’d written. Self-delusion. Lazy at gymnastics. Cowardly at Koloshin’s, expressed my opinions too obviously at Beer’s. Spoke about my own way of life – desire to show off. Dined with Volkonsky and talked a lot about myself – desire to show off. In the evening read unsystematically – thoughtlessness. Didn’t go up to Zakrevskaya at the concert – cowardice. Bowed to Ukhtomsky – cowardice. Couldn’t bow to Lvova – cowardice. Sat up at home with Kostenka till after 12 – lack of firmness.
(March 30, 1851) Got up at 7. Wrote till 10, badly. At 10 went to a funeral. Stood badly in church – vanity. On the Tverskoy Boulevard till 4. Didn’t bow to Orlova – cowardice. Went riding in the country. Had dinner and read. Went to bed early because of over-eating and over-indulgence.
(April 6, 1851) Got nothing done. Lied and bragged a lot, was casual and absent-minded in my preparation for communion. […]
(April 7, 1851) Lazy and weak. Seryozhenka is living with Masha. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.
(April 8, 1851) Wrote a sermon, was lazy, weak and cowardly.
(April 15, 1851) Got up late, at 8 o’clock – laziness and irresolution. Did my gymnastics well. Played the piano too hurriedly -read likewise. Dined and argued with Auntie. Too little fierté [pride]. Roamed about the whole evening after dinner and had sensual desires.
(April 17, 1851) Wrote nothing – laziness got the better of me!! […]
I like Tolstoy’s description of his special sadness, his trying to piece together why his sadness is different from common sadness:
(June 2, 1851) My God, my God, what sad and depressing days! And why am I so sad? No, not so much sad, as hurt by the awareness of being sad, without knowing what I’m sad about. I used to think it was because of inactivity, of idleness. No, it’s not because of idleness, but of the situation I’m in that I can’t do anything. The main thing is that I can’t find anything like the sadness I feel anywhere at all – neither in descriptions, nor even in my own imagination. I can imagine that it’s possible to be sad about a loss, a parting, a disappointed hope. I can understand that it’s possible to be disillusioned: that everything begins to pall and that one is disappointed so often in one’s expectations and that there’s nothing left to look forward to. I can understand, when one’s soul harbours love for all that is beautiful, for men and women, for nature, and one is ready to express it all and ask for sympathy but finds nothing but coldness and ridicule and secret malice against people – that sadness can result. I can understand the sadness of a man whose lot is hard and who is oppressed by a painful, venomous feeling of envy. All this I can understand, and from one aspect there is some good in all such sadness.
But the sadness which I feel is something I cannot understand or imagine to myself. I have nothing to regret, almost nothing to wish for, no reason to be angry with fate. I can understand how wonderfully I could live on my imagination. But no. My imagination paints nothing for me – I have no dreams. There is a certain gloomy delight in despising people – but I am not even capable of that; I don’t give them a thought at all: sometimes I think that such and such a man has a kind, simple soul; then I think: no, better not seek to know, why make mistakes! I’m not disillusioned either – everything amuses me, but the trouble is that I turned to the serious things in life too early, turned to them when I was not yet ripe for them, but could feel and understand; and so I have no strong faith in friendship, love or beauty, and have become disillusioned about the important things in life; and yet in trivial matters I am still a child.
My favorite passage, his telling of a childhood love. Long but worth reading:
(June 8, 1851) Love and religion – these are two feelings which are pure and elevated. I don’t know what men call love. If love is what I have read and heard about it, then I’ve never experienced it. I used to see a boarding-school girl called Zinaida, and I liked her; but I hardly knew her (ugh! what crude things words are! how stupid and vulgar do feelings appear when once expressed). I stayed in Kazan for a week. If I had been asked why I stayed in Kazan, what I enjoyed there or why I was so happy, I wouldn’t have said it was because I was in love. I wasn’t aware of it. I think that it’s precisely this unawareness which is love’s chief feature and which constitutes its whole charm. How morally unencumbered I was at the time. I didn’t feel all that burden of trivial passions which spoils all the pleasures of life. I never said a word to her about love, but I am so sure that she knew my feelings that if she did love me, I attribute it only to the fact that she understood me. All impulses of the soul are pure and elevated to begin with. Reality destroys their innocence and charm. My relations with Zinaida have remained at the stage of the pure yearning of two souls for one another. But perhaps you doubt that I love you, Zinaida? If so, forgive me; I am to blame; I could have assured you with a single word.
Shall I really never see her again? Shall I really find out one day that she has married some Beketov or other? Or, sadder still, shall I see her looking cheerful in her little cap, with those same clever, open, cheerful and loving eyes? I won’t abandon my plans in order to go and marry her; I’m not quite convinced that she can constitute my happiness; but still I’m in love. If not, why these joyous memories which cheer me up, why this way of looking that I always have whenever I see and feel something beautiful? Should I write her a letter? I don’t know her patronymic, and perhaps because of that I shall be deprived of happiness. It’s ridiculous. We forgot to bring a pleated shirt with us, and because of that I’m not doing military service. If we had forgotten to bring a peaked cap, I wouldn’t have thought of presenting myself to Vorontsov and getting a post in Tiflis. It would have been impossible in a fur cap! Now God knows what is in store for me. I surrender myself to His will. I don’t know what is necessary for my happiness or what happiness is. Do you remember the Archbishop’s Garden, Zinaida – the side path? It was on the tip of my tongue to declare my love, and on yours too. It was up to me to begin; but do you know why, I think, I said nothing? I was so happy that I had nothing to wish for, and I was afraid to spoil my happiness … not mine, but ours. That sweet time will always remain the best memory of my life. But what an empty and vain creature is man! When I am asked about the time I spent in Kazan I reply in an offhand tone: ‘Yes, for a provincial town the society was very respectable, and I spent a few quite happy days there.’ You rogue! People make fun of everything. They laugh at the idea that with one’s loved one even a hut would be paradise, and they say it’s not true. Of course it’s true. And not only a hut, but Krapivna, Stary Yurt, anywhere at all. With one’s loved one even a hut would be paradise, and that’s true, true, a hundred times true.
Meditations on idleness, productivity, making resolutions to oneself:
(February 28, 1852) I have only now come to understand that confidence in one’s future actions is deceptive, and that one can only rely on oneself in the case of something one has already experienced; that such confidence destroys that very strength of mind, and that no occasion should be considered too insignificant to apply the whole of one’s strength to it.
In a word, never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
However simple this rule is and however often I have heard it, I have only now come to understand and recognise the truth of it.
(March 20, 1852) It’s a long time since I’ve been as cheerful as today, and that’s because I’ve been working. How many advantages there seem to be in work, while in idleness there is neither benefit nor pleasure; and yet it usually gets the upper hand. […] Tomorrow I’ll get up earlier and try to spend the day as fully as possible. Damned laziness! What a wonderful person I would be if that didn’t impede me.
(October 31, 1853) It is impossible to comply with the resolutions of one’s rational will merely as a result of the expression of it. It is necessary to use cunning against one’s passions. To do good is pleasant for everybody, but the passions often make us see it in a false light. And reason, if it acts directly, is powerless against the passions; it must try to make one passion act against another. Therein lies wisdom.
A brutal description of his brother Nikolai. I’ve definitely felt this about others:
(March 23, 1852) Nikolenka for some reason was very cheerful; and I confess it was disagreeable to see his cheerfulness because there is something absurd and unattractive about him when he’s cheerful.
And:
(November 13, 1852) Nikolenka grieves me very much; he doesn’t love me or understand me. The strangest thing of all about him is that his great mind and kind heart have produced nothing good. Some connection is lacking between these two qualities.
Then:
(November 15, 1852) Went shooting, killed a boar. […] Mistrustfulness and resentment of my brother have passed.
Depressive paranoia:
(May 25, 1852) Why are all people – not only those whom I don’t like or respect and who are of a different bent from me, but all people without exception – noticeably ill at ease with me? I must be a difficult, unbearable person.
And:
(November 13, 1852) Yepishka put it very well when he said that I am somehow unlovable. This is certainly what I feel – that I can be no pleasure to anyone, and everyone is a burden to me. When I speak about anything, I involuntarily say with my eyes things which are no pleasure for anyone to hear, and I feel ashamed of myself for saying them.
(November 17, 1852) I must get used to the fact that nobody will ever understand me. This fate must be common to all people who are very difficult to get on with.
On strengths and weaknesses, and “common people”:
(October 19, 1852) Simplicity is the main condition of moral beauty. For readers to sympathise with a hero, they must be able to recognise in him their weaknesses as much as their virtues; virtues are possible, weaknesses inevitable.
(October 26, 1853) The common people are so far above us by reason of their lives filled with toil and privations that it is somehow wrong for the likes of us to look for and describe what is bad in them. There is bad in them, but it would be better to say only what is good about them (as about the dead).
I like this hard-won lesson:
(July 24, 1854) It’s strange that I’ve only just noticed one of my chief defects: an inclination to show off all my superior qualities, which offends other people and arouses envy in them. In order to win people’s love one must, on the contrary, conceal everything in which one stands out from the rank and file. I’ve come to realise this too late.
A few days later:
(July 29, 1854) My improvement is progressing admirably. I feel how my relations with people of every sort are becoming easy and pleasant since I decided to be modest and became convinced that there is absolutely no need always to appear grand and infallible. I am very cheerful.
(August 24, 1854) How strange that I’ve only now become convinced that the higher you try to make yourself out to be to people, the lower you become in their opinion.
A funny sequence: Tolstoy tries to write his own prayers, renounces them in favor of the Lord’s Prayer, then later goes back to attempting it again:
(March 24, 1852) A prayer: ‘Father, Mother of God, remember my relatives, living and dead;’ then: ‘Save me, O Lord, from vanity, indecision, idleness, sensuality, illness and mental disquiet; Grant me, O Lord, that I may live without sin and suffering and die without fear and despair – with faith, hope and love I surrender myself to Thy will.’
‘Mother of God and Guardian Angel, pray to the Lord for me.’
(November 1853) I am replacing all the prayers which I have made up myself by the Lord’s Prayer alone. Any requests I can make to God are expressed more loftily and in a way more worthy of Him by the words ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven’.
(July 13, 1854) My prayer. ‘I belive in one, almighty and good God, in the immortality of the soul, and in eternal retribution for our deeds; I wish to believe in the religion of my fathers and I respect it.’
‘Our Father’, etc. ‘For the repose and salvation of my parents.’ ‘I thank Thee, O Lord, for Thy mercies, for this and for that’ (here recall all the happiness that has been my lot). ‘I pray Thee, inspire me to good undertakings and thoughts, and grant me happiness and success in them. Help me to correct my faults; save me from sickness, suffering, quarrels, debts and humiliations.’
‘Grant me to live and die in firm faith and hope in Thee, in love for others and from others, with a clear conscience, and with profit to my neighbour. Grant me to do good and shun evil: but whether good or evil befall me, may They holy will be done!’
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