aster but we consulted
and decided it would dry up, so I ate it. It is getting late--8
o'clock and the candle is burning low."

Kalakshinovka 1912.

"The days have fallen into a routine. I distribute provisions, go to
see the peasants and they come to see me--sew, mend, scrape mud off
of boots and at last have a little time to write a few letters. In
about a week I hope to go to Alekseievka, a village about 9 miles
off, which is quite a center. There is a fair there every week and I
shall buy some sugar and a little white flour and perhaps if it can
be found, a piece of ham. I am getting awfully hungry. People will
never get anywhere while taste is undeveloped and perception so dull
and imagination so weak. I don't think all people can be taught to
understand, but I do believe that the eye can be trained and the
imagination led into paths which will make them revolt from ugliness,
and that is a tremendous step towards salvation. It seems to me that
'conditional immortality' is the only possible and plausible
doctrine. So much of humanity, whatever it looks like or however
cannily it has devised to exist, has not begun, and why have such a
respect for numbers? I should like to weed out acquaintances just as
I attack occasionally the linen closet--with fire, and have a chance
to breathe. It is all the unborn who sit around and choke the
atmosphere."

Kalakshinovka 1912.

"All the horror of the famine is being realized right now. I will not
write you about it for it is too terrible and heartbreaking--it is
the horses, camels, cows and sheep--worst of all the horses. I will
never forget yesterday as long as I live. I cried all day, I could
not sleep all night. It is simply horrible. I have never so much
realized the problem of existence as here. Everything is so foreign
and so striking, one is simply faced by the question of how to live
and to what end. What I feel more strongly than anything is that the
product of the best education and civilization should be good and
zealous--more near the saint--than that the masses should read or
write. I have faith enough that all will attain in the end if the
type that leads is worthwhile, but the type that leads is not."

Kalaskshinovka 1912.

"I have a whole little house now. The owner comes and cleans up; I
bolt my door and I have a place to keep provisions for almost 900
people. The whole thing is just as interesting as it can be. I went
not long ago to a village of Bashk