Count Tolstoi.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 143, 16 June 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

Count Tolstoi.

I ■■■■' . ■ __^-; ■■ ■■■■• : ; Intbbesting Pen and Ink Portrmt. ; ;;/;

That Tolstoi is nob himself narrow anil außbere the following extracb from an &$■ ■ count of a visit to him\ by Oscar Blunder)' thai, which appeared recently iff the London 'Daily News,' will show. The German author being in Moscow, learned that Tolstoi was also there, and called upon j him :«•* ■ ■ ■.■■■-'':':^ The elegance of the entrance-hall Bur;| prised me, and the footman in black who took my card astonished mo etill more. One is nob prepared bo find in the home of' this philosophic hermib the social cuatotos! of an Embassy. This contradiction is very:l simply explained. Ho lives in Moiooff . only as the guesb oi bis wife. The winter residence in the capital is built for her »°4'V the children, who grow up atnid.all the pleasures and joys of youth, their rnminati« ing father not in the least begrudging them the vanities of the world. For Count Toletot is no proselytiser. His shyness of the# world and sooieby, which has become a necessity for him, he does not wish to force on his family. The last consequenceß of the 'Kreubzer Sonata' are nob so nnrelant. . ingly pursued by him, for his youngeib Child is still in frocks, and has looked oud into this world of contradictions and confusions with its inquisitive eye« for "nob more than four or five years. After passing down long corridors, which are like.bo many entrenchments around Tolrtoi I qtudy, lab last stood before this remarkaDlf man. I saw him juab as the celebrated pfcsbure shows him—in his full peasant* smock, a belt round his waisfc, with W V White beard, the •melanohojyi ; deep-W<> ©yes, the coarse grey hair, the tbougntfu), wrinkled brows, the strong bands AQCupv tomed to work, which during Ihb conrersftr I tion he keeps passing through Biß belb, and the wholo touching earnest' nees which surrounds the man. poun» I,eo Tolstoi makes the impression of • figure out of the Bible. When one converses with him one lowera one* voice. One imagines tbab one or the Apostles has stepped oub of; Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper.'" The.oonwn> .. like simplicity of the study is In unison with the simple digaiby of the »»,; Whitewashed walls, without any artirtw ©mbellishmenb, black leather cbßire^ooo'C' phelves with only a few books, a biwhwooj writing table, on which a quantity Of «6W;. written sheets lie—fchia is the worlt-wU 9t this worldly monk,