was succeeded by a repulsion
which reached the high note of exasperation when he wrote to a man
friend, "A woman in good health--why, she is a regular beast of prey!"

None the less, he showed great kindness and sympathy to the women who
sought his society, appealing to him for guidance. One of these (an
American, and herself a practical philanthropist), Miss Jane Addams,
expressed with feeling her sense of his personal influence. "The glimpse
of Tolstoy has made a profound impression on me, not so much by what he
said, as the life, the gentleness, the soul of him. I am sure you will
understand my saying that I got more of Tolstoy's philosophy from our
conversations than I had gotten from our books." (Quoted by Aylmer Maude
in his "Life of Tolstoy.")

As frequently happens in the lives of reformers, Tolstoy found himself
more often in affinity with strangers than with his own kin. The
estrangement of his ideals from those of his wife necessarily affected
their conjugal relations, and the decline of mutual sympathy inevitably
induced physical alienation. The stress of mental anguish arising from
these conditions found vent in pages of his diaries (much of which I
have been permitted to read), pages containing matter too sacred and
intimate to use. The diaries shed a flood of light on Tolstoy's ideas,
motives, and manner of life, and have modified some of my opinions,
explaining many hitherto obscure points, while they have also enhanced
my admiration for the man. They not only touch on many delicate
subjects--on his relations to his wife and family--but they also give
the true reasons for leaving his home at last, and explain why he did
not do so before. The time, it seems to me, is not ripe for disclosures
of this nature, which so closely concern the living.

Despite a strong rein of restraint his mental distress permeates the
touching letter of farewell which he wrote some sixteen years before his
death. He, however, shrank from acting upon it, being unable to satisfy
himself that it was a right step. This letter has already appeared in
foreign publications,* but it is quoted here because "I have suffered
long, dear Sophie, from the discord between my life and my beliefs.

* And in Birukov's short Life of Tolstoy, 1911. of the
light which it throws on the character and disposition of
the writer, the workings of his mind being of greater moment
to us than those impulsive actions by which he was t